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PAPUA NEW GUINEA RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS
Papua New Guinea Forests Experience
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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
5/12/96
OVERVIEW & SOURCE by EE
The Earth Times News reports on PNG rainforests with an interview with Mrs.
Margaret Taylor, former PNG Ambassodor to the United States, is a well
respected PNG conservationist. The article notes that in PNG "the land is
owned by the people, but the forests seem to be up for grabs." We couldn't
concur more in the assessment of the current situation. The Earth Times
can be accessed on the WWW at:
gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:70/11/pubs/earthtimes/earthtimes
g.b
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Forests: Papua New Guinea experience
By C. Gerald Fraser
Earth Times News Service
May 11, 1996
JAKARTA, Indonesia--In Papua New Guinea the land is owned by the people,
but the forests seem to be up for grabs. "We are at the whims, I believe,
of transnational Asian logging companies, specifically, from Malaysia, that
do not have long term interests in Papua New Guinea," said Margaret Taylor.
She is a Papua New Guinean member of the World Commission on Forests and
Sustainable Development, and a lawyer who served as ambassador to the US
and to Mexico.
Her nation is about as large as California, with one-eighth the population
(5 million people) and natural forests that occupy 70 percent of the
country--and are owned by the people. Papua New Guinea shares the island of
New Guinea with Irian Jaya or West Irian, which is part of Indonesia.
Taylor said the forest situation is the same throughout the Pacific area.
"In the Solomon Islands as well," she said, "It's come in, cut, take, bye-
bye. Out go the logs." In Papua New Guinea, the government has a policy,"
she said, "but we don't have anything on the ground. We have made big
efforts and strides with our national forest service. But we don't have
enough human resources to be in the field for the forest authority.
"We have not completed an inventory. We as yet, do not have a forest plan."
A disappointing element about the commission meeting in Indonesia, she
said, was the lack of more people from Asia and the Pacific. However, she
continued, she was "pleasantly surprised at the openness of discussion
here in Indonesia. It's not what I was expecting knowing what I know of
the political situation here."
What did impress her was the visit to East Kalimantan. "I felt I got a lot
out of my trip, looking at the concessions, I saw employment of a lot of
people. I know that an injection of a million US dollars go into salaries
every month. I know that the project is one of the better ones in the whole
country. I saw a plantation forest, I saw nurseries. I saw what I perceived
as a country that's coming to terms with he fact that this is a renewable
resource and it's a major export earner for the country."
She said she wondered what happens in monoculture plantation forests?
Do you just cut out the primary rain forests and replace it with
plantations? What does it do to the ecology? I don't have the answers to
these issues in one day of looking. But I'm glad I went and had a look."
Another rewarding element Taylor experienced was discussions about
satellite and radar sensing and the ability to use it to extrapolate data
on biodiversity, flora and fauna. Having accurate information, she
explained, "partnered conservation with forest extraction, integrated
timber data with biodiversity. And that kind of information I would like to
see utilized and made available to the public, specifically to
nongovernmental organizations and communities."
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