Little to show in terms of growth

MANUS MP Ronny Knight says there has been continuous clearing of land in the province by logging companies but very little development initiatives have been provided for the people.    
Raising the issue to the Minister for Forest Patrick Pruaitch in parliament yesterday, Knight said Manus was a small island province and such action would lead to serious deforestation implications in the future.
“Logging is becoming an issue in the province and the contractor promised development for the area but there was nothing done and now the contractor has cleared the land and moved on to do more logging activities on the southwest coast of the province and operating under a different name.
“Manus is an island and we cannot stand and see our forests being cleared. We want to check various agreements between the locals, the company and the government,” Knight said.
In response, Pruaitch said the government was looking at downstream processing and there would be no new FMA permits until
2015.
To address the concerns raised, he said there were number of logging concessions for many logging projects.
Pruaitch said he would pursue and rectify the issue and was willing to have discussions with respective leaders for proposed projects to ensure people benefited from their resources.
He said a number of timber permit rights (TPR) were undertaken between landowners in Manus and the logging companies under subsequent conditions.
Meanwhile, Pruaitch said calls to direct agriculture companies to use the cleared land abandoned by logging companies instead of clearing virgin forests in a new location for agricultural purpose was subject to the SABL Commission of Inquiry.
He also said the government approved two weeks for log export levy to be diverted from Finance to the National Forest Authority.