Forest Certification in Developing and Transitioning ... - UTas ePrints

forest certification in papua new guinea
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In 1996 PNG officially established an FSC certification process, with Yati Bun
appointed as the country’s first contact person to co-ordinate the PNG-FSC national
standards development process. Attempts were made at this time to sensitise the PNG
government to recognise the potential role that community forestry could play in
forest management. Proponents of community forestry argued in favour of its
importance in PNG where land and forest resources are customary owned. However,
there was little government support or logging industry interest.
At the same time, a lot of media coverage occurred about bad logging practices and
of disputes between companies and landowners over logging deals. Newspapers regularly
carried stories of forestry operations that has been stopped by landowners or
brought to court for non-compliance of contractual obligations. Proponents of certification
argued there was a need to look for solutions and find alternative ways of
doing things. The final organizational structure of PNG FSC that emerged over the
years is presented in Figure 4.
Figure 4 Organizational chart for PNG FSC-National Working Group, February 2004
FSC International
PNG FSC
National Working Group
NWG Coordinator
National Standards Working Group
Dispute Resolution Committee
Chairperson of the Committee
Possible other Working Groups or
Committees
Dispute Resolution
Sub-committee(s)
Source: PNG FSC Initiative Inc., 2004
The PNG-FSC national working group works closely with FSC International to
ensure that it meets requirements. However, despite certification being implemented
now for more than a decade in PNG, it has not provided an incentive for companies,
forest producers and communities to get involved. One reason for this, contained in
Bun’s initial study, is an indifferent attitude towards certification among potential participants.
People’s interest in forest certification depended on whether it was useful for
them or not. The market situation in PNG does not support certification because most
yale school of forestry & environmental studies