By LORRAINE WOHI
OUTGOING Minister for Environment, Conservation and Climate Change, Wera Mori has welcomed the decision by the Prime Minister James Marape to decommission him.
Mori said Prime Minister has done the right thing by decommissioning him and returning the portfolio to Pangu Pati.
The ministerial portfolio has now been passed on to a member of Pangu Pati and MP for Daulo, Pogio Ghate.
Mori’s decommissioning follows his resignation from the ruling Pangu Pati to lead the Country Party going into the 2022 national election.
Country Party is a coalition partner the Pangu-led government.
“I am thankful for the fact that Country Party has not being sacked or removed from the coalition,” he said.
“Country Party and Pangu will go into elections to make sure we get the numbers to be part of the next government.”
Mori thanked Marape and the executive of Pangu Pati for giving him the privilege to serve initially as Minister for Commerce and Trade and later as the Minister for Environment, Conservation and Climate Change.
Mori said during his tenure in the latter ministry, he has put in a lot of effort in making sure the department got enough attention it deserved especially in light of the threats caused by climate change.
During his tenure the department launched the national determined contributions that were part of the global responsibility in making sure PNG subscribed to the global economic standards and has a duty and obligation to ensure that it did its part to mitigate climate change.
Other programmes that he embarked on included the intervention of measures that would help to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
“We would like to see 10 million trees planted in the next decade at a rate of 1 million especially in areas covered by grassland starting in Simbu and Eastern Highlands provinces and the programme can rollout to other parts of the country that have grasslands,” Mori said.
Mori also wished to see the launch of the staff housing scheme for the department going forward. Furthermore, he said the department has looked into monetising the carbon resources and to restructure the framework, meaning that by year 2030 when PNG reaches its goal to ban logging, the country must have replacement revenues.
He thanked the department together with the Global Coalition of Rainforest Nation and Ernst and Young for putting together the structure in which the Papua New Guinea government has visibility and also with the revenue that is going to be generated when the country starts trading carbon credits under this new framework.
