ITEM #1
Title: Eco-forestry plan praised
Source: Copyright, 1999, Post-Courier Online.
Date: August 7, 2000THE benefits of eco-forestry projects are long lasting unlike commercial logging operations.
Jacob Samo and Stephen Mosses, landowners involved in the European Union funded islands regional environmental and community development program in East and West New Britain provinces had this message to deliver at last week's New Millennium seminar in Port Moresby.
They said while the commercial logging operations left behind a trail of misfortunes after they finished operations, the village-based eco- forestry projects provided an income for a long while.
"We have been taught land-use plans, conservation and management techniques and have been given advice on health and sanitation. We have been able to broaden our scope of learning and realise now how dangerous things would have turned out for us if we had invited large scale logging companies to come and do business in our areas," said Mr Mosses.
He said large scale logging companies often lie to people and reap their resources and did not meet a lot of the conditions outlined in agreements they made with landowners.
He said
"They do not build proper roads, do not maintain them if they do, destroy the environment during logging, pollute water resources, do not work in accordance with the guidelines set out by the National Forest Authority and are selective when employing people."
Mr Mosses said since the eco-forestry project was started in his village in 1997, it had benefitted the people in many ways. They had been able to build their own homes, buy boats and other accessories that made their lives more comfortable.
"We have also been able to help other line agencies like the departments of health and education build aid posts, classrooms and houses for teachers. We have also used the money we raised from the sale of our timber products to fund trips for women and youth groups,'' he said.
Mr Samo said the project had kept a lot of young men in his Bairaman village in Pomio, West New Britain, occupied in something useful.
"Unlike the K10 we got for the sale of one cubic metre of round log, we are getting K425 per cubic metre for ordinary species and K600-K700 for premium species like kwila and rosewood,'' he said.
ITEM #2
Title: Recommendations from conference
Source: Copyright, 1999, Post-Courier Online.
Date: August 9, 2000LAST week's conference in Port Moresby - Forest Policy for the New Millennium - was attended by 130 local and international delegates. This is a summary of the policy recommendations emanating from the final conference workshop sessions.
Foreign aid
This workshop suggested that the effectiveness of aid is weakened if the sovereignty of the recipient country is compromised, if local capacity to absorb aid is exceeded, and if local business is displaced by the donor's consultants and contractors.
Also, donors and recipients often will have quite different views on the meaning of "capacity''.
The donor may interpret it as providing new skills, while those being trained will expect to receive equipment or infrastructure which will enable them to apply those skills.
Another workshop made the observation that "institutional strengthening'' projects which impose donor-funded consultants onto line agencies, such as the National Forest Service and the Office of Environment and Conservation, will have limited long-term impact unless the relationships between those agencies and other key institutions and stakeholders are assessed and improved.
Economics of forestry
Economic issues that were tackled in this workshop included domestic timber processing, reafforestation, and plantation establishment. The conclusions were:
* the processing industry could be assisted through transparent means, rather than through hidden subsidies, such as tax exemptions; * the minimal activity in natural reafforestation and the establishment of new forest plantations can be attributed to limited landowners capacity, doubtful returns to landowners and external investors, and the lack of resource security for investors. The industry is also deterred by unstable political and economic climates (including high interest rates). Therefore, investment in other countries is more attractive; and * landowners' financial capacity to carry out reafforestation is limited.
The incentive is reduced by the long time that a new forest takes to mature, and the existence of alternative land uses that may provide a higher return.
Concerns
The National Forest Service (NFS) has been greatly weakened, and its capacity to effectively deliver sustainable forestry through FMAs is in doubt. One experienced PNG forestry sector participant suggested that the NFS should confine itself to the maintenance of legal standards, and outsource the provision of services to private companies and certified foresters. Also, queries were raised about the appropriateness of the agency's role as a "middle-man'' in the acquisition and exploitation of forest resources.
More attention needs to be given to the enforcement of existing laws and regulations, rather than devising new ones which may not prove to be more effective. The efforts which are currently binding the logging industry in more and more red tape would be better directed to making the processes of acquisition, allocation, and exploitation more transparent and equitable.
Lessons
This workshop focused on lessons learned at the local level, and criticised the current mechanisms of forest resource acquisition and timber permit allocation.
Landowners are exploited by the State, companies, and the educated urban elite. They are disempowered when the State assumes control of forest resources, without provision for comanagement.
The so-called "development options study'' (DOS) has not worked because it is only done after the State has acquired the resource through an FMA, and does not really involve the landowners. The DOS should be replaced by properly informed studies of land-use options which are carried out before landowners decide whether to opt for an FMA. There should also be greater landowner participation in the process of resource allocation by Provincial Forest Management Committees and the National Forest Board, whose decisions also need to be open to public scrutiny. The formation of Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs), as a precondition of the FMAs signed between landowners and the National Forest Authority, often produces new conflicts by removing the flexibility which exists in the customary system of land tenure. The NFS is not in a position to resolve such disputes.
Furthermore, the current practice of making a K50 payment to the chairman of each new ILG should be discontinued because it encourages people to form more land groups, to get more money.
Incentives are needed to encourage the creation of larger ILGs which can play a bigger role in the conduct of land-use option studies, or in allocating and managing forest resources.
Landowners (or ILGs) should be allowed to withdraw from an FMA, if the National Forest Authority or a logging company fails to meet its contractual obligations within a specified period.
Logging, conservation
Stakeholders in PNG have not yet formulated coherent strategies for conservation. There is no national biodiversity conservation plan to guide the Government, NGOs, landowners, or donor agencies in decision making. Moreover, development planning generally tends to ignore issues of biodiversity conservation, rather than incorporating them. However, one issue in this workshop concerned the financial and economic implications of extending the recently imposed moratorium on new forestry concessions.
The areas designated for logging under Forest Management Agreements (FMAs) would instead be designated as permanent conservation areas.
The benefits to the world of such a move would be the prevention of species extinction and the storage or "sequestration'' of carbon.
The vast forests in Western Province may possess sufficient biodiversity and cultural values to qualify as a World Heritage Area, with associated tourism potential.
The benefits of such a strategy for the local people are less easily identified, but would include the protection of their supply of subsistence and the benefits of watershed protection.
The substantial financial costs of replacing logging with conservation include log tax, company tax, and VAT revenues foregone by the Government, as well as royalties foregone by the landowners.
A direct cost to Government would also include that of monitoring illegal logging.
While logging is an enclave industry, there would still be economic costs from the loss of value currently adding, by those who supply goods and services to the industry.
Some politicians and bureaucrats would stand to lose the benefits which they receive from logging.
Remote local communities would be worse off without logging, if that was the only way to fund their road access, and provide them with employment and royalty payments. Forest conservation needs to be able to compete with other forms of land use.
However, it is not an option which is likely to appeal to landowners unless financial incentives are provided.
Financial assistance must also be extended to the national government, if landowners choose options which do not generate the level of tax revenues which are obtained from logging.
In other words, if conservation was preferred to logging, then financial incentives to offset the loss of revenue from industrial logging would need to be committed by donors, at both national and local levels. One conference workshop discussed the potential of the newly established PNG 'Mama Graun' Conservation Trust Fund (CTF), which has been set up to attract additional donor support for conservation.
The fund is designed to have a capital base that generates interest which can either be deployed for conservation or reinvested in the fund. CTF strategies include the provision of financial incentives for local communities to manage their natural resources more sustainably. Biodiversity conservation can be integrated with other community development objectives, and project funding can connect local communities with regional, national, and international biodiversity conservation strategies.
Ecoforestry
The ecoforestry workshop benefited from the participation of several local community leaders.
They agreed that national laws and policies should be framed to take account of ecoforestry, and that small-scale sawmills should be registered and monitored by the Government, as they are in Vanuatu. The problem is that donor agencies - most notably the European Union - are showing far more interest than the national government in developing and regulating the small-scale forest industry.
This leads us back to the issue of how much we should expect from the Government. Agricultural extension and research activities in PNG have largely been devolved by Government, to the industries.
Given the government's plans to further "downsize'' the public service, it is unlikely that the NFS will have the resources to provide more services to eco-forestry.
The ecoforestry industry may need to find a way of using donor assistance to provide its own organisational, marketing, research, and extension infrastructure.
Dr Colin Hunt is senior research fellow in the economic studies division, National Research Institute. Dr Colin Filer is head of the social and environmental studies division, National Research Institute.