Commission protects trees through tagging exercise in city

THE National Capital District Commission (NCDC) started its five-day tree-preservation order (TPO) tagging exercise last Wednesday.
The aim of the exercise is to protect trees at sites around the city.
The project began with the tagging of trees (with a TPO notice) at the vicinity of the National Archives in Waigani, along Independence Drive, Port Moresby before branching out to other declared TPO sites in the city.
Gertrude Miria, who is a physical planner attached to the strategic planning of regulatory services division of NCDC, spoke to The National during the tagging exercise at the Waigani National Archives.
“TPO is an annual project by NCDC under regulatory services strategic planning where we do policy documents to NCD physical planning board for approval of preservation of trees in the city,” Miria said.
“We have criteria that we used to do all the protection of the trees that we carry out in the city.
“At the moment we have more than 30 sites under this tree preservation order project.
“The tagging exercise that we are currently doing is the last part of this project where we do the tags and put on the trees so when people damage, cut down or loot the trees they will be fined under the Physical Planning Act.
“Any development that will take place at the perimeter of this area (National Archives, where the trees are reserved) must get approval from the NCDC.”