FORESTRY

Paper on rainforests wins award

A PAPER written about the Multipurpose National Forest Inventory (MNFI) in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has won the runner-up best paper award in the international peer-reviewed scientific journal Case Studies in the Environment published in 2022 by the University of California Press in the United States of America. The paper titled: “Monitoring the Multiple Functions of Tropical Rainforest on a National Scale: An Overview from Papua New Guinea tried to answer three case study questions which are:
What is the most critical information that a country should collect in regard to national scale forest and biodiversity?

What is the most suitable NFI design to collect information for sustainable management of forest, biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation in Land Use Land Use Change in Forestry (LULUCF) sector in national scale?
How important is it to conduct comprehensive national scale forest studies?
The paper stated that “PNGFA had not undertaken a full assessment of the country’s forest resources to date. Several forest inventories had been conducted in the early 1960s to assess the potential of forest areas and the available forest resources for economic development.
It went on to say that “the NFI protocols have traditionally been designed to assess land coverage and the production value of forest. The paper proposes that this approach needs to evolve toward multipurpose resource survey with broader scope, including data on plant and animal biodiversity, forest carbon pools, and carbon sequestration, given the role of forests in addressing climate change.
The authors were recently caught by surprise when they were informed that their 12-page paper had won the runner up award. The authors include Dr Ruth Turia (when she was still employed by the PNGFA), Gewa Gamoga of the PNGFA, Dr Hitofumi Abe of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, Professor Vojtech Novotny of the New Guinea Binatang Research Centre, in Madang, Prof Fabio Attorre of Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy and Lauri Vesa of FAO in Rome, Italy.

This award-winning paper is part of a series of scientific papers submitted to the Case Study in the Environment Journal. A total of 13 MNFI research papers were published in the international peer-reviewed scientific journal. This international award provides scientific credibility to the PNG MNFI and proves that PNG forest researchers are at the highest international standard. These scientific papers cover topics such as forest cover change, forest soil carbon, plant and insect diversity and richness, impacts of forest disturbance on diversity, and the importance of including women in realizing the opportunities of REDD+.
With the effect of climate change becoming more pre-dominant, and the importance of biodiversity increasingly recognised, the need for monitoring the diverse functions of forests is increasing; to make logging and other forest exploitation sustainable, to respond to biodiversity crisis by scaled-up conservation efforts, and to respond to climate change.
As 97 per cent of land in PNG is under customary tenure and the forests are owned by the people and communities, it is obligatory for the MNFI team to obtain permission from the forest owners to access forests for field assessment. This is one of the major challenges to field implementation.

The PNG Government with the support from international development partners, including European Union, UN-REDD, and FAO, conducted the MNFI to assess and monitor the forests in order to address all these three needs. The inventory includes timber resource estimation, GHG emission estimation, vegetation structure assessment, and plant and animal biodiversity monitoring.
The implementation is challenging, mainly as a consequence of difficulties accessing forests due to the lack of infrastructure and customary forest ownership, and the need to bring together experts from multiple fields.
However, for PNG, it is very significant to undertake the MNFI to ascertain what constitutes its forest resources as data and information are critical to planning for sustainable forest management and for undertaking associated research programmes. From the information and data gathered from the MNFI work, PNG has been producing valuable information for national and international reporting purposes.
PNG remains one of the biodiversity hot spots.
The awarded paper is publicly accessible from the link: https://online.ucpress.edu/cse/article/6/1/1547792/119570/Monitoring-the-Multiple-Functions-of-Tropical.

Contentment is golden, says Jacklyn

Mother of four from Eastern Highlands facing each day with optimism

By ZINA KOIM
JACKLYN Kova of Okapa in Eastern Highlands works as a cleaner to sustain her family’s living even though she graduated with a certificate in office administration.
“These days, it’s really hard to find a decent job in something you were taught in school or trained for so I had to apply to be a cleaner when I saw the position vacancy so I can pay for my children’s school fee and support my family,” she said.
“As long as I do my job well and get paid to make ends meet and sustain the living of my family, I am happy and content.”
She said she has four children of which two live with in Port Moresby with her and the other two are with their father in the village.
“When I get paid, I send K50 each to my two children and my husband as well,” she said.
She said that they were in the village so that amount was enough for them to at least get soap, oil, salt and other basic necessities.
“I use the rest to buy food for the house, bus fare and other necessities that my two children and I would need here in Port Moresby,” she added.
“Other times, when there is a problem in the village I send money to my husband to contribute so he can still feel being part of the community. I also buy stationery, school uniforms, books and other things that my son who is Grade 9 would need.”
Kova said she also did gardening at the block where she stays and that has also helped her.
She said she did grades one to six at Haga Primary School in Okapa but could not continue even though she had passed the exams because of school fee problems.
“I completed grade six in 1996 however, as we had moved from Port Moresby to the village we did not have money for me to continue and that was I left school and stayed at home.”
She said she got married and after having three children she felt the urge to go back to school.
“People that we went to school together, those ones that we competed back in school, I later saw some of them working as electrical engineers, school principals or doing other jobs. That has motivated me to go back to school.”
She said when she heard of the tuition fee-free policy by the O’Neil government in 2013, she went back to Haga Primary School and completed grade eight there.
“I was then selected to Okapa High School so I went and I did grade nine and 10, 2014 and 2015,” she said.
In 2016, she attended Kamaliki Vocational Training Centre in Goroka and graduated with a certificate in office administration.
“I started sending out job applications to schools and officers. I was called by Bird of Paradise Hotel to go for an interview but when I went there, the HR staff told that me it was a big and busy hotel and I did not have the experience to work there.”
Kova said she had not given up but continued to send applications to school and business houses including Goroka Secondary School and Kamaliki Vocational College.
“Fortunately, I received calls from both. I chose the college because that was where I got my training from and I wanted to go back and work there.
“When I first started, my boss advised that I would only be working three months and after that he saw that I was doing a fine job so he let me to stay and work for another three and later to continue on in 2018.”
Unfortunately, Kova had to leave work because she was pregnant. While being in village, she said she worked hard to support the family.
“I did gardening and brought the harvest to town. Upon returning home, I would by things for children. I buy them clothes, books, uniforms and food for the house.”
After three years of being in the village, she flew to Port Moresby.
“I have seen that there is a lot of nepotism in the workforce so I saw the vacant position as cleaners at The National, I did not hesitate to apply,” she said.
Her encouragement to those who don’t have a job yet is to take any job and start somewhere.
“University and college graduands expect jobs that match their knowledge and the field of study that they graduate from but do not worry about that,” she said.
“Apply for any job and do any job that you can, at least you earn a living.
“While working, keep an eye on the newspapers and when a vacant position in your field of studies, you can always apply for a job.”
Wise words from one who knows what it is like to be content with what she has and a positive outlook to life and hopes for the future.