Logging code review underway

WORK is under way to review the Logging Code of Practice (LCOP) of Papua New Guinea.
A two-day inception workshop to start the project was held in Port Moresby on June 27-28.
Organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, the workshop was titled: “Promoting sustainable forest management by developing effective systems of forest planning, monitoring and control in PNG”.
National Forest Service acting managing director Goodwill Amos welcomed the project, saying: “PNG, and in particular, the PNG Forest Authority (PNGFA) welcomes this assistance as the LCOP and the Planning, Monitoring and Control Procedures (PMC) for Natural Forest Logging Operations under Timber Permit are 17 years old.”
Amos said the project was first mooted in 2009 soon after a training workshop on Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) conducted in PNG, funded through FAO and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).
He said the PNGFA supported the idea for this project when the Australian government through its “Asia Pacific forestry skills and capacity building programme – Phase II” called for project ideas in 2009.
“It has taken this long for the idea to actually become a project, as most common for donor funding sources. In this connection, the PNGFA acknowledges the support of other collaborators such as the SPC.”
He wished participants a successful and fruitful dialogue in seeking a much improved planning and monitoring of forestry projects in the country.
The workshop was facilitated by the project chief technical advisor and head of the Tasmanian Forest Practices Authority in Australia, Graham Wilkinson.
It was attended by staff of the National Forest Service, Department of Environment and Conservation and other representatives from the forest industry, non-governmental organisations as well as the Forestry Strand of the University of Technology.
Also attending were project partners from SPC (Fiji), Tropical Forest Foundation (TFF  Indonesia) and the FAO programme officers for the Asia Pacific Region (Samoa and Bangkok Offices).
Wilkinson said during the workshop that Tasmania had the best LCOP in Australia because it was updated regularly.