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PAPUA
NEW GUINEA RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS
PNG
National Forest Plan Draws Poor Reviews
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
4/7/97
OVERVIEW,
SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
Following
is an article from the Smithsonian Institution's Biological
Conservation
Newsletter outlines the problems with the new Papua New
Guinea
National forest plan. Things look grim,
as it is noted 12
million
hectares of forest are to be handed out by the year 2000.
Areas
identified as important for biodiversity conservation are
provided
little real protection as huge sections of PNG's rainforests
are
turned into industrial forest plantations (if lucky enough to be
replanted). This item was sent by a list recipient,
thanks! The
article
tells the story.
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Date:
Mon, 7 Apr 97 08:39:02 PDT
Subject:
Extract from the BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION NEWSLETTER
BIOLOGICAL
CONSERVATION NEWSLETTER
No. 165
March 1997
Smithsonian
Institution
Department
of Botany, National Museum of Natural History
Editor:
Jane Villa-Lobos
______________________________________________________________
PAPUA
NEW GUINEA
FOREST
PLAN
The
Papua New Guinea (PNG) National Forest Plan is based on forest
resource
mapping supported by Australia and the World Bank. It
identifies
20 million ha of the country's 39 million ha forest estate
for
logging - 12 million ha of this to be handed out before the year
2000.
To put
this into proper perspective, the area to be allocated by the
turn of
the century equals three times the total rainforests of
Australia
and the rest of the Pacific combined. Within these forests
are the
majority of the planet's species of birds of paradise and
arboreal
marsupials, more orchid species than any other country on
earth
and an impressive avian biodiversity.
The
plan greatly increases both the rate and the impact of what is
already
a grossly unsustainable industry. An Australian government
assessment
in 1995 found that PNG's logging allocations were three
times
above economically sustainable levels. The new plan almost
triples
the concession areas.
The
treatment given to environmental protection in the Plan is nothing
more
than cynical. The PNG Forest Authority's remit to identify
protection
forests (regions of high conservation areas) is fulfilled
by
listing these areas in the plan. However, these areas are then duly
ignored
in the final concession maps. Forestry areas are declared over
existing
conservation areas; proposed conservation areas have been
disregarded;
and regions identified as having the highest priority for
biodiversity
conservation are slated for logging.
The
Plan reaches its most absurd in West New Britain Province (the
western
half of the island of New Britain) where all but 98,000 ha of
the
Province's 1.6 million ha of closed forests have been given over
to
logging. The remaining portion is only excluded because it is
largely
needle and cockpit karst that would challenge the most
adventurous
foresters (although helicopter logging has been proposed
even
here ...). New concessions have been allocated across the
ecologically
important Whiteman's Range and Lake Namo wetlands, as
well as
the entire lowland forests of the region.
Under
the Forest Plan, logging and oil palm operations are planned for
a
significant area of the forests of the Torricelli Ranges, on the
Sepik
coast of PNG. This area has perhaps the highest localized
marsupial
endemism in the world, and is among the top areas for
localized
mammalian diversity and endemism on the planet. All of these
animals
are dependent on their forest habitat and each is already
threatened
by hunting pressures.
Local
community organizations are deeply concerned about the effect
that
this rapid push to open new forest concessions will have on
people
living in rural areas. Ursula Rakova, Land and Environment
Officer
for the Individual and Community Rights Advocacy Forum says
"this
is not a Forest Plan but a Forest Logging Plan. It is disastrous
for
PNG's tropical rainforests and clearly violates the rights of the
indigenous
communities. The proposed logging areas are strongly
condemned
by PNG NGO's"
Tied
with recent changes in forestry legislation that centralize power
in the
Forest Minister, the scene is set for an increasingly narrow
focus
on timber production and slow erosion of one of the world's most
important
centers of biodiversity. (Source: Arborvitae
Vol. 4 & 5)
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