08/05/00 -- ACTION ALERT! Conserve Papua New Guinea Rainforests Through Community Based Eco-Forestry

ACTION ALERT! Send an Email Below!
Conserve Papua New Guinea Rainforests Through Community Based Eco-Forestry
By Forests.org, Inc.
August 5, 2000

Papua New Guinea (PNG) contains the largest intact tropical ancient forest in the Asia Pacific region and the third largest on the planet. Almost half of the country's accessible forests are already committed to industrial logging. A new forest policy report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), entitled "Forest Strategies for Community-Based Forestry and Conservation in Papua New Guinea", states that "for far too long, logging practices in our forests have been unsustainable and unfair... ...foreign logging companies have reaped enormous profits and wreaked environmental havoc while the rural resource owners have been left with only the crumbs of the pie." Nearly the entire focus of forest policy has been upon facilitating log export by transnational loggers.

There is strong momentum by the PNG government, landowners, local NGOs, international NGOs, and donors to reform the PNG forest sector to make it more sustainable and equitable. The World Bank was largely responsible for the recent new logging moratorium that was imposed on the acquisition and allocation of new forest resources by the National Forest Authority. Additionally the Bank has demanded implementation of reforms to the tax system, amendments to the Forestry Act concerning clearance of land, and changes to the operation and structure of the National Forest Board. The Bank, European Union and AusAID all are pursuing forest projects.

At a recently concluded Forestry Conference held in PNG entitled 'Forest Policy for the New Millennium', landowner representatives and local NGOs voiced their support for the logging moratorium and called on the government to change its policies in favor of small-scale forestry. Dr. Colin Hunt of the National Research Institute reports that ECO-FORESTRY is capable of returning the same amount of financial benefits for landowners as commercial logging. Eco-forestry is also practiced over small areas under strict management plans, greatly increasing the ecological sustainability of natural forest management by local peoples. Dr Hunt and other eco-forestry advocates argue that donors should continue to subsidize small-scale forestry because as a development model it transfers the benefits of forest conservation to local communities. Most sector stakeholders agree that the moratorium should be in place long enough to allow small, community-run eco-forestry operations to be recognized for their economic and environmental contribution to Papua New Guinea.

WWF's "Forest Strategies for Community-Based Forestry and Conservation in Papua New Guinea" looks at what is required to make eco-forestry an accepted sub-sector, recommending that the PNG Government should revise the National Forest Policy to fully recognize eco-forestry and small-scale and medium-scale logging, change the policy governing the formation of Forest Management Areas (FMAs) to allow landowning groups wanting to establish eco-forestry projects to opt out of FMAs and processing the substantial backlog of applications from communities in PNG wanting to set up Wildlife Management Areas. The report is also calling for logging maps to be updated to show clearly that current and planned conservation areas, fragile forest types, areas of threatened or restricted plants, plant communities or animal species; and important water catchments are not available for logging.

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

Send an email, fax or letter to Prime Minister Mekere Morauta of Papua New Guinea, building upon the sample letter below, asking that his government grant community based Eco-forestry the recognition it deserves as an appropriate and acknowledged type of forest management.

Hon. Sir Mekere Morauta, MP
Prime Minister for Papua New Guinea
Office of the Prime Minister
PO Box 639
WAIGANI
Papua New Guinea
Fax: 675 (country code) 327 7328
Email: primeminister@pm.gov.pg

To send an email to the Prime Minister; enter your name and email, and edit the message and sign your name at the end if you wish. All fields are required.

Your Name:

Your Email:

Your Message:

Dear Prime Minister Morata, I am very pleased that you have made conservation of Papua New Guinea's rainforests a priority, and am writing to express my support. The moratorium on new logging is a much needed policy initiative to give time to reform the industry away from its overemphasis upon log export by transnational companies. A crucial part of reform will be Government acknowledgement and support for more variety in the types of management, scale and ownership of forest management activities. Government recognition by law of community eco-forestry activities being carried out throughout PNG would be an important first step in diversifying forest management. Fostering a viable eco-forestry sub-sector will require revising the National Forestry Policy to include and small and medium-scale logging, and changing rules governing Forest Management Area formation to allow landowners to pursue eco-forestry. Logging maps must be updated to remove conservation areas, eco-forestry projects and environmentally sensitive areas. There are other important recommendations being developed by researchers, community groups and NGOs in Papua New Guinea, and we urge you to listen further to the many citizens deeply committed to conservation and sustainable development of PNG's rich forests. And please follow through on your commitments to maintain the moratorium and taxation rates, as well as changing the composition of the Forest Board. PNG's forests have the potential to fuel sustainable development essentially forever, if you are able to continue to make the hard decisions now. We commend you for your efforts thus far.