This idea continues to move along despite near total condemnation from the local people. This time, ancient rainforests are to be replaced with a coconut sap project. It would be an act of environmental vandalism to clear the area for a coconut plantation, especially when thousands of hectares of abandoned and underutilized plantations line PNG's north coast. The project is yet another controversial agro-forest project.
Landowners are unaware of the details and oppose it.
It proposes to develop 120,000 hectares of virgin forest land into dwarf coconut farms. The purpose is to process fresh coconut sap into a 100 per cent natural food and health drink for export. Project proponents are Francisco Umali and Edwin Acoba who are representatives of Ukadeco Pty Ltd, a company based in the Philippines. It was witnessed by the then Oro premier, Douglas Garawa. The parties agreed to harvest the logs within the 120,000 hectares of virgin forests, about four million cubic metres of logs and plant the same area simultaneously with dwarf coconut trees.