Expert disagrees with use of global system

By SALLY POKITON
UPNG journalism student
THE hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment being used to map the 40m corridor for the Chimbu section of the Highlands Highway is not accurate enough, an expert says.
Mary Pati, managing partner of PGS Ltd (PNG Geospatial Solutions), said such a method used for the mapping of the 40m corridor was unreliable for legally defining the corridor.
“Surveyors are the only people who can delineate and demarcate the 40m corridor boundary for any compensation payments through proper cadastral survey,” she said.
Cadastral surveying – land surveying that relates to the laws of land ownership and the definition of property boundaries – involves interpreting and advising on boundary locations, on the status of land ownership and on the rights, restrictions and interests in property, as well as the recording of such information for use on plans, maps. 
It involves the physical delineation of property boundaries and determination of dimensions, areas and certain rights associated with properties, whether they are on land, water or defined by natural or artificial features.
Pati, who is a member of the Association of Surveyors PNG, was responding to Wednesday’s report in The National in which Mori Resources, the company tasked with mapping out the Chimbu section of the highway, had delivered a presentation to stakeholders on the system it used.
It was delivered by its principal consultant, Wera Mori.
Mori said the GIS satellite mapping system the company used had accurately identified structures and developments within the 40m roadway.