JICA assists monitor PNG forests

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, March 9, 2014 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

FOREST monitoring and surveillance in Papua New Guinea has been updated to assist the country monitor forest stocks through the government of Japan through is aid agency, JICA (Japanese International Cooperation Agency).

In concluding the Forestry Monitoring project- the PNG Forest Authority (PNGFA) and JICA hosted a workshop to disseminate the project’s achievements, and outlined the areas of another project to be undertaken next, in the presence of various stakeholders in the sector.

The project was conducted for a period of 3 years, beginning in 2011, and focused on developing:

·        National level forest Basemap, which the country has never developed since 1972.

·        Update Forest Inventory and Mapping System, which was last updated in 1996 with the assistance of Australia.

·        Assist in producing forest related data that is sufficient for the valuation of carbon estimation for the country’s forest stocks.

In his opening address to the participants, Managing Director of PNGFA Kanawi Pouru, said that the forestry sector has played an important role in developing PNG during the early days of the governance of the country in terms of infrastructure building.

“The first National Forest Policy was passed in 1979, and it gave prominence of resources to nation building like infrastructure, social services, and employment,” he said.

“Forest resource was looked at as a huge resource- there was no concern for sustainability until 1991 when the policy was changed.”

“It was a challenge for the country to move from unsustainable foresting to one that was sustainable.”

“At that time the ability of government to balance and sustain it fell back, eventually rendering us out of date.”

He said that the tools required to achieve that change needed the help of donors to partner with the authority to build its capacity to properly manage the nation’s forests.

Saying that the system that the authority was working with went as far back as the 1970s, however, with a lot of hard work under the project, they were now on track with the latest measurements on the density of forest areas to date- through the use of satellite imagery.

“In times when climate change is an issue, it enables us to access these information through the project which is one of the key outputs of the project.”

Speaking on behalf of the government of Japan, First Secretary to the embassy, Yoshiki Takahama congratulated the government of PNG for it efforts in being a global partner in taking measures to address the climate change issue in focusing on activities which stand for the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation Forests.

“Japan is implementing actions for Cool Earth composed of further technical innovation, global applications of Japan’s low-carbon technology and pledged assisting in addressing climate change through assisting developing countries to reduce emissions,” he said.

“I hope the result of this project will be utilized by the relevant agencies in Papua New Guinea to implement sustainable forest management for addressing climate change.”