Solomon Islands to End Unsustainable Forest Harvests

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

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11/7/98

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE

The reform-minded Solomon Islands government continues the rhetoric of

using the current log market downturn to put in place safeguards to

ensure sustainable use of their small and dwindling forest resource

base. This is highly encouraging, and unless the pro-timber lobby re-

mobilizes, should represent a significant respite for the forests,

ecosystems, biodiversity and people's development aspirations. The

rest of the region would be well advised to follow such foresighted

policies.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Solomon Islands to End Unsustainable Use of Forests

Source: Agence France-Presse via Pacific Islands Report

Date: October 27, 1998

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (October 27, 1998 - AFP)---The Solomon Islands

will take measures ending "unsustainable exploitation" of its

rainforests by "unscrupulous multinational companies," a government

press statement said here Tuesday.

Forestry Minister Hilda Kari tabled the plans in Parliament Monday.

Logging companies, mostly Malaysian-owned, have been previously

accused of clear-felling vast stretches of rainforests after bribing

local politicians.

Kari said that at the rate they had been going before the Asian crisis

the entire Solomons forest would have gone in 10 years.

"Over the past 10 years the forestry sector in Solomon Islands has

been swamped by multinational loggers, mostly from Asia," she said.

"Log production has been pushed to an alarming rate almost three times

the sustainable level by the middle of the 1990s."

The Asian slowdown had been to the country's advantage, ending the

"looming environmental destruction."

Reforms would set up a national forest resource management strategy

and a national timber industry policy which all loggers will have to

follow.

"We are determined, in spite of possible strong opposition from the

industry, to move forward with this plan towards achieving concrete

changes of long term viable economic reform," Kari said.

"The current practice and effects of large scale logging must be

altered and redirected so that indigenous Solomon Islanders be given

the opportunity to gain control and be made to pursue sustainable

development of their forest resources."

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