Forest owners ready to benefit

LANDOWNERS of the April Salumei forest area will be the first to own 60% of any forest development project through the pilot Reduced Emissions Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) project in the country, Ambunti-Dreikikir parliamentarian Tony Aimo said on Monday.
Aimo said the project would be the biggest carbon trade project in the world to date, receiving international validation to the climate community and biodiversity (CCB) standards, a first in the Pacific.
The project was first initiated in 2008 by former prime minister Sir Michael Somare, who wrote to the Office of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability, requesting it become the pilot REDD project.
After four years of extensive awareness and consent programmes carried out by the developer, Rainforest Project Management Ltd, the government approved it as Papua New Guinea’s pilot REDD project in May.
It has gained the overwhelming support from 164 incorporated land groups.
“Integrating the local people the development of the April Salumei project will allow the traditional owners to receive commercial benefits, and far more in percentage from the proceedings for preserving their forests as opposed to harvesting of the timber,” Aimo said.
“The communities within the project area situated in the districts of Ambunti-Dreikikir and Wosera-Gawi are some of the least accessible and consequently the least developed in the country.
“Thus, this will provide employment and local and commercial development.
“The project works closely with local level and district governments to provide additional funding to health and education and other social services in the project area, reducing the need for families to search of these services.”
Aimo said this was a new model of resource sharing in PNG and he supported the people and the developer to see it to fruition. 
“The project recognises and acknowledges the landowner rights to the land and their resource ownership as outlined in the PNG Constitution, accordingly they are major shareholder and equity partners, which is seldom seen in carbon projects around the world.”