Capture landowners’ views in current review, says official

National
Ruth Turia

LANDOWNERS’ views need to be properly captured in the current review of the Forestry Act of 1991, an official says.
Forest policy and planning director Dr Ruth Turia said all stakeholders should have an input in this timely review.
She said there had not been proper representation of landowners from forestry areas during the recent review in Lae, Morobe, for the Mamose and Highlands.
Dr Turia said the review workshop heard suggestions for more landowner participation to be reflected in the reviewed legislation.
“The Government has already made its intentions known that it wants to involve more landowners and provincial governments but in terms of trying to get them involved, we haven’t yet identified how they can come in,” she said.
“We are hoping to listen to some of the resource owners and provincial government representatives on how to be involved but I haven’t heard that so I am worried that we won’t capture anything from the landowners.”
Dr Turia said in terms of logging, the only issue currently faced was landowner related, in relation to the Government’s plan to ban round log exports.
She said a lot of the benefits that the landowners received were from round log exports and landowners had expressed their concern at a summit in Port Moresby last year.
“We can address that by reviewing the type of levies and forest finance that we negotiate with potential timber investors,” Dr Turia said.
Meanwhile, Dr Turia called for more participation of landowners in the final review workshop for the Southern which will be held in Port Moresby in two weeks.
The PNG Forest Authority held the first Forestry Act of 1991 review workshop for the New Guinea Islands in East New Britain in early October.
The authority concluded the second review workshop in Lae, for Highlands and Mamose last week.