Official sees conservation areas good for business

CONSERVATION areas can be managed to generate incomes for local communities without harming the environment, says an official.
East New Britain adviser for Commerce and Industry and team leader of the economic sector in the province, Henry Tavul was speaking during a two-day workshop on assessing the capacities of the provincial governments of East and West New Britain using the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Global Environment Facility (GEF) capacity scorecard in Kokopo last week.
He said with the workshop stressing on the importance of conservation areas and ENB as a tourism hub, the challenge was now on everyone to look after and better utilise conservation areas so that rightful people would benefit.
Tavul said not only would conservation areas serve a vital role in the lives of communities concerned but also be a source of income without harming the environment.
The National Government through the Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (Cepa) in partnership with UNDP has been implementing a GEF-funded project on community-based forest and coastal conservation and resource management in PNG.
Members of provincial governments, as well as UNDP and Cepa staff from Port Moresby, attended the workshop.
One of the key targets of the project is to increase the capacity of stakeholders in managing conservation areas from the national level and down to communities.
This is the first initiative of the Government to establish a national protected area network with a target of one million hectares of forest area, of which 200,000 hectares is shared between East and West New Britain.