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| Pruaitch condemns reports by Greenpeace |
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2006/7/18
FOREST Minister Patrick Pruaitch has accused Greenpeace for denying PNG’s economic development by leading anti-logging campaigns in Europe.
Mr Pruaitch said Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other non-government organisations (NGOs) had been pressuring buyers in Europe and Australia not to buy timber products from PNG.
He said the forestry sector had contributed a lot to the economic growth of PNG.
“Forestry is important in PNG. It employs 10,000 people, contributes 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) and earns half-a-billion kina a year in exports,” Mr Pruaitch said in a media statement released last Friday.
Mr Pruaitch had dismissed local and international media reports criticising the PNG Government and operators in the forestry industry for illegal logging activities.
He said logging industry in PNG is operating legally, complying with all forestry regulations.
Mr Pruaitch said in the last three years, the activities of the forestry industry had been reviewed in detail. And the reviews showed that most logging operations were conducted legally, he added.
Mr Pruaitch said that in areas that illegal logging was discovered, the Government, through the National Forest Authority, was quick to stop the operations.
He said PNG’s forest industry was investigated by an ‘independent review’ which the World Bank required as part of a condition before providing a loan to improve the forestry sector in the country. However, the review was never completed because the World Bank imposed certain conditions which the PNG Government did not agree with, and the loan was cancelled.
Mr Pruaitch said the review promoted eco- and subsistence forestry instead of commercial forestry.
He said eco-forestry was not commercially viable and, if the Government had pushed for it, it would have closed down commercial forestry, reduce economic growth, eliminate jobs and affect infrastructure development in rural areas.
He said the allegations about illegal logging by Greenpeace were sourced from materials used from the independent review, which had been dimmed baseless.
“Allegations that PNG was destroying its environmental heritage were also false and deliberately alarmist,” Mr Pruaitch said.
He said 33% of forests in PNG had been designated for commercial use, 5% reserved and 63% remained unallocated and non-productive.
Mr Pruaitch said most of the unallocated areas are ‘old growth’ or ‘primary’ forests.
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| Source:http://www.thenational.com.pg/ |
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