Forest For The Trees

Villagers in an isolated part of Papua New Guinea look set to make more than $US15, 000 from logs felled and milled from their own forest.

Ogia villagers, who live on the banks of Lake Murray in PNG's Western Province, have secured a deal to sell 35 cubic meters of eco-timber worth about K50,000 ($US15,650) to Sydney-based company The Woodage.

The villagers, who own forest that was previously logged by Malaysian logging company Concord Pacific, will ship two containers of timber this month (May) down the Strickland and Fly Rivers to Obo government station, where they will be loaded onto a waiting barge and shipped to Australia via Port Moresby.

Concord Pacific's operations triggered much controversy when its Kiunga-Aiambak road project, purportedly initiated in 1995 to link the mining township of Kiunga with Aiambak village, was exposed to be a large scale logging operation through virgin forest.

Villagers with the help of international environmental group Greenpeace and local non-government organizations CELCOR (Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights) and PNG Eco-Forestry Forum led continuous waves of protests against Concord Pacific and went to the PNG National Court to question the legality of the project, resulting in the court ruling the project illegal in 2003.

Galeva Sep is at the center of ecoforestry efforts in Western Province. [Photo: Courtesy GREENPEACE]

Galeva Sep, from Boboa village in Lake Murray resigned his job as a Port Moresby-based policeman to form and chair the Lake Murray Resource Owners Association, and led the fight against the logging company from the front.

Close to three years after Concord Pacific's departure, Sep has now realized his dream of empowering his people to be equal partners in extracting their own forest resources, though at their own pace and following environment-friendly sustainable logging practices.

He and other village leaders traveled to nearby Ogia village in March to witness the commissioning of a new walkabout-sawmill, which the villagers leased from local NGO Foundation for People and Community Development (FPCD) and hope to eventually pay off using proceeds generated from log exports.

Greenpeace forest campaigner Grant Rosoman, who was instrumental in securing the K50,000 deal for Ogia villagers, told Pacific Magazine The Woodage would pay a 10 percent premium for eco-timber and 20 percent more for FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified community timber.

"However, The Woodage is just one relatively small buyer in a large Australian market for quality hardwoods. We have several other buyers who are ready to take thousands of cubic meters of eco-timber or FSC certified wood. We do not have a problem with selling the sawn timber and in particular the premium species such as rosewood, kwila, taun and vitex. The big challenge is having sufficient and regular supply that is well milled and meets the standards for eco-timber and FSC certification," Rosoman said.

Rosoman was part of a Greenpeace-led environment coalition that helped establish an eco-timber project on Solomon Islands' New Georgia Island in 1993 that helped local villagers manage their forests sustainably and mill and market their own timber.

On the Solomon Islands project, Rosoman said: "We have been assisting Solomon Is village eco-timber producers to export to this buyer (The Woodage) for several years, and they have been buying FSC certified timber from community operations in East New Britain via FORCERT and formerly the EU funded eco-forestry program there."

8,000 hectares has been demarcated in PNG's Western Province. [Photo: Courtesy GREENPEACE]

Australian forester Tom Diwai says ecoforestry can be ecologically very sound if strictly managed and monitored. "It is my contention that a truly sustainable ecoforestry project should process the timber down to finished wood products (such as) moldings and even furniture and handicrafts. In this way maximum return from felling each tree can be obtained," Diwai says.

In Lake Murray, Greenpeace and NGOs such as Barefoot Community Services and FPCD, have helped villagers demarcate and mark over 8000 hectares of traditionally-owned land, in preparation for the expansion of the eco-forestry project.

Sep says the master plan is for each of the lake's village to have a walkabout-sawmill to enable them to have a source of income and simultaneously protect their forests for future generations.