Schnaubelt: Logging permits need to be signed before loading ships

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Forests Minister Walter D Schnaubelt welcoming the new Acting Managing Director, John Mosoro. Photo: PNG Bulletin

CERTAIN timber companies are not complying with rules set that they must have export logging permits signed by the PNGFA before logs are loaded onto the logging ships.

According to Intel that has reached Forests Minister Walter Schnaubelt, logging ships are loading logs before log export permits are signed and granted.

Minister Schnaubelt revealed this at the handover -takeover ceremony of the outgoing Managing Director Tunou Sabuin and the incoming PNGFA Acting Managing Director John Mosoro today.

“Please let us follow the rules. Sign Permit – load ship, no sign permit-no loading ship. We need to get timber companies to comply with our rules,” Mr Schnaubelt told senior forest officers, board representative and the media at the ceremony.

In welcoming the new acting Managing Director Mr Mosoro and farewelling and thanking the outgoing MD Mr Sabuin, Mr Schnaubelt said that there were underlying issues that PNGFA has to attend to.

He said forestry like all other natural resource sectors, is an important economic sector within the PNG economy that brings infrastructural development mainly into the rural areas as well as revenue to the landowners in the form of royalties and premiums and to the government in the form of taxes.

Minister Schnaubelt said the Marape/Basil government has set its mission to ‘Take back PNG’ by developing targets for key resource sectors to achieve in the past two years.

However, he said change has been slow prompting him to support the reason why he supported the National Executive Council (NEC) to appoint a new MD.

On the issue of landowner royalty payments, Minister Schnaubelt said he would like to see an improvement in the system of  royalty payments to forestry landowners where they must  receive monthly payments increased to 20 per cent.

Minister Schnaubelt added that the government recognizes that PNG still has about 78 % of large tracts of forests remaining and there is an increasing pressure from commercial logging, commercial agriculture, shifting cultivation and mining to the forest cover.

“We acknowledge that our forest is at a declining trend but the rate in which it is declining is subject to some uncertainty and much debate among academics, government institutions, forest industries and non-government organizations (NGO) that have interest in land use and forest land use change.

“We further acknowledge that the national scale information on our forest resources including the carbon stock is poorly known, hence we have embarked on a national scale multi-purpose national forest inventory (NFI) which has been stalled because of funding shortfall.”

He said the mandate of the PNG Forest Authority is to:

  1. Manage, develop and protect the Nation’s forest resources and environment in such a way as to conserve and renew them as an asset for the succeeding generations; and
  2. Maximise Papua New Guinean participation in the wise use and development of the forest resources as a renewable asset; and
  3. Utilize the nation’s forest resources to achieve economic growth, employment creation and industrial and increased ‘downstream’ processing of the forest resources; and
  4. Encourage scientific study and research into forest resources so as to contribute towards a sound ecological balance, consistent with the national developmental objectives.

“ We are now almost passed the first half of 2021 and we need to take stock of whether the noble mandate that we have set for us to undertake is being attained or being addressed.

“ If not or not progressing very well, we need to start planning how to meet those and I challenge the new Acting Managing Director to put his foot down and prepare workable programs to enable the PNG Forest Authority to ensure that those preambular tasks are attained and within the ambit of the Forestry Act, 1991 (as amended).

“We have a lot of work yet to be completed and I am calling on the new Acting Managing Director of the National Forest Service to pay attention to these and to ensure that it is completed to our satisfaction.  Some of these are:

  1. The review of the Forestry Act;
  2. The Decision Support System to enable central data collection and retrieval to help with chain of custody of forest products;
  3. The SAGE 300 accounting software;
  4. Continuation of the National Forest Inventory program;
  5. Painim Graun, Planim Diwai;
  6. Development of a Timber Legality Verification Scheme;

The Minister concluded that most of all, the PNGFA need to revisit its main function and role as the PNG Forest Authority and I challenge the new Acting Managing Director and his executive management team to re-evaluate and attend to some of those within these three (3) months.

The Acting PNGFA MD Mr Mosoro said he has a mandate to make some changes within the PNGFA in the next three months and will need the support of the senior forest directors and officers.