Academic says better knowledge of forests needed

A BETTER knowledge of the forest in Papua New Guinea will help the government draw up sound policies for its protection, PNG University of Technology (Unitech) vice-chancellor Dr Ora Renagi says.
He said data of all information collected from the forest would support the country in a big way.
“Knowledge of the type of plants, soil, animals, wood and insects, and many more, are all documented in the forest inventory,” he said after the PNG Forest inventory reasearch meeting this week.
“If the government or professors want to know the situation of a forest, they can just consult the inventory.”
“For example, we can talk about zero emissions by 2050, but we need these types of information to help us understand whether we are really getting zero emissions or not, so the data in the inventory can substantiate our position.”
Head of forestry department at Unitech Mex Peki said it was better to have the natural forest conserved such as for the REDD+ programme.
REDD+ is an effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and increase carbon sequestration in the forestry sector. REDD+ stands for Reducing Emission from Deforestation and forest Degradation, (+) conservation, sustainable management of forests and carbon stock enhancement.
It involves five main activities – reducing emissions from deforestation, reducing emissions from forest degradation, forest conservation, sustainable management of forests and carbon stock enhancement.