The widespread enthusiasm of Sikut residents for the new land as ‘freeing’ them from the obligations, constraints and disputes inherent in customary land, is taken by some politicians and government officials as evidence that a more general reform of customary tenure would act as a spur to development. There has indeed been significant investment and development in some of the blocks. Some blockholders have planted thousands of cocoa trees and are anticipating an income of several thousand kina a month (dependent of course on price fluctuations and crop success). Yet we must add some caveats to this development success story. Individual tenure requires the state to have the resources and will to support it if tenure is to be more than a piece of paper. The inability of the state in ENB to provide title even after 10 years, and the lack of clarity as to which of the competing arms of government has jurisdiction at Sikut, has directly led to the under-utilisation of large amounts of Sikut land. People who have been allocated blocks more recently are wary of putting too much effort into developing the land as they have seen others lose their blocks to the original landholders.

An example that illustrates the shaky basis of government jurisdiction is the road access to the blocks at Sikut, where one of the two main roads is only sealed half way. This is because, in 1995, despite warnings to the contrary, one of the blockholders planted cocoa seedlings close to the edge of his block. When the time came for the road to be sealed, he demanded several hundred kina in compensation from the Division of Works, which was going to remove his seedlings so that the road could be sealed. Exasperated by the prospect of wasting years and thousands of kina on legal action, the Provincial Government reallocated the money to another resettlement scheme. As a consequence, the blocks further away from the centre of Sikut are now serviced by a dirt track. Buses refuse to traverse the dirt track as the damages result in prohibitive costs for spare parts. Blockholders cannot afford to hire vehicles to take their cocoa to selling points, with the result that these blocks are among the least developed in the resettlement area. In theory, as this was government land, not customary land, the government could have removed the cocoa seedlings and continued with the road development. In reality, however, they could not afford the legal costs nor have the police tied up in resolving this situation. This example illustrates the difficulties facing the government in enforcing requirements for project development on land over which they have title, and that leaves serious doubt over the government’s ability to enforce tenure reform on customary ground.

It is also worth bearing in mind that individual title, in and of itself, does not free one from the demands of kin or from customary obligations that many see as a disincentive to development. While extensive development has occurred at Sikut, no one has planted their entire three hectares with cash crops and food; the maximum planting level has been around two hectares. The reason frequently given for partial block plantings is the need to avoid constant requests for assistance or the risk of being victimised as a result of jealousy. With increased plantings, relatives calculate the future gains from produce sold and hence increase demands for assistance. As one blockholder put it, ‘if they see me harvesting all the time and I don’t give to some people they can do some things to my block and my cocoa won’t bear fruit’. Although this problem is not as bad as it was 20 or 30 years ago, several informants told me that people who consistently refuse requests can end up dead or injured because of sorcery that is nearly always inflicted by jealous siblings or cousins. The previous chair of the Resettlement Committee (before Pirit) was one of the few who consistently attacked this belief about family interference, yet his credibility in the village in this respect was undermined by chronic arthritis in his left leg, which was seen by many as being caused by the jealousy of someone having magical power.

Most important of all, the granting of individual title will not guarantee against the re-emergence of tenure practices that many would describe as ‘customary’. There is a precedent for this in ENB. In the 1950s, the Australian Administration released several large blocks of land at Wudal for lease to individuals from Tolai villages near Rabaul. These leases came with the guarantee of individual title and a policy that the land was to be inherited by the next of kin — ideally the children of the blockholder. In most cases, however, the land stayed within the blockholder’s clan, often passing on to his sisters’ sons, as would be the case with customary land. Although the majority of Tolai are adamant that this is ‘new land’, and it is morally right that the children of the blockholder who had put in all the hard work of development should inherit it, the strength of kinship ties makes it hard to refuse nephews of one’s own clan when they ask to be allowed to help out on the block and plant a section of it for themselves. In such situations, when there are many working the land, it is even harder to remove them. In most cases the nephews have ended up in possession of the block after the death of the original blockholder. In theory, they could be legally removed. In practice, however, it is a process that can take decades and cost thousands of kina, which is not a realistic option for most Tolai. A plaintiff would probably have to wait several years before the case was heard by a local land court, and any case heard in a local land court would be liable to appeal in a higher court. There are three blocks at Wudal that were given to Matupi. Of these, two are now inhabited by nephews of the same clan as the blockholder. In only one case have the children managed to assert their legal right to inherit the title.^[2]

Many Sikut residents will argue that Tolai society has changed since the 1960s. They argue that the nuclear family is stronger today, and that the large numbers of people at Sikut (compared to Wudal) will make it possible for a culture to emerge in which demands by clan nephews will be easier to resist. Although people never refused to recognise their nephews, I observed many occasions on which clear boundaries were drawn around the relationship — especially the nephews’ rights to come and stay on the block for extended periods. This is important as traditionally, in the matrilineal system, the relationship between a boy and his maternal uncle was seen as being in many contexts more important than a boy’s relationship to his father, and uncles and nephews were expected to spend as much time as possible together. Now the fear of a land grab means that uncles try to limit this relationship and the amount of time that nephews spend on their block. Many people held strong views about this, including one Sikut blockholder working at one of the big mines elsewhere in PNG:

I was continually struck by the strength with which these feelings were expressed at Sikut. Although there were some who felt that customary tenure would re-establish itself as it seemed to have done at Wudal, they were a clear minority. Although it is early days, in the majority of cases where blocks have been transferred as a result of death or choice it has gone to the original holders’ children or other relatives outside the clan. Perhaps the most vitriolic dispute that I encountered at Sikut was between a sister and brother. The block was in the name of the mother, who initially allowed her daughter to live on the block. Several years later she decided to remove the daughter and give the block to her son. This action was believed to be motivated by an intense dislike of her daughter’s husband. As the daughter and her husband had planted hundreds of cocoa seedlings and erected a permanent house, the mother’s actions led to a very heated dispute. Without going into the details of the dispute, many Sikut residents remarked that the mother’s original arrangement would have ensured that the land stayed in her clan for the next two generations. By attempting to remove her daughter and replace her with a son, she was, in one person’s words, ‘giving the land away’. Many Sikut residents saw her actions as evidence of a new attitude developing towards kinship and land tenure on state land.