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FORESTRY IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC: HOW AhD FOR WHOM ?
Dennis Richardson
Forestry Council, P.O. Box 5052, Lambton Ouay
Wellington, New Zealand
ABSTRACI
The Asian Development Bank has elassified the forest economies of its South
Pacific Member Countries as follows: industrialized econornies with significant
forest resources (Australia and New Zealand); island economies with abundant
resources at a low level of industrialization (Papua New Guinea)i developing island
economies with significant forest resources (Fiji, Western Samoa, Solomon lslands);
and developing island economies with limited forest resources (Kiribati, Tonga,
Cook Islands).
Following a review of projected global and regional demand for wood, the
constraints and opportunities for forestry development in these different
environnents are discussed. The ecological hazards - and economic myopia - of
unrestrained logging are emphasized. The goods and services which forestry can
undoubtedly provide will not be realised by exploitative venlures or by casting
island economies in the role of raw material zuppliers to the industrialized
nations.
Professional arrogance and blinkered vision among land-use pundits (including
environmentalists) are as damaging to fragile ecosystems as the juggernauts of
exploitative logging and large scale monocultural reforestation. This paper
highlights the need for safeguards to mitigate the effects of dangerous
technologies, at the same [ime enabling a sustainable srpply of goods and services
from forestry. It calls for a reduction in the export of unprocessed logs, the
adoption of light capital technologies and appropriale operational sceles, and lhe
expansion of agriculture-supportive, mulLi-purpose, forestry.
Sane implications of adopting a rrhuman chauvinist'r approach to ecosystem
utilization are considered.
Introduction
In this paper, I propose to draw your attention to what I perceive to be signifieant
recent changes in the regional forest economy (inctuding some of the ecologicel hazardg
associated with those changes) and to suggest possible safeguards to €nsure a s.Jstainable
srlpply of goods and services from forestry in the Pacific lslands.
I shall argue the csse against the twin juggerneuts of exploitative logging and
large-scale industrial plantatione in the smaller islands, and I shall attempl Lo reconcile
global and regional needs for foregt products with the conservelion of our dirninishing
resource. My argunents are not new: indeed, the gist of what I have to say I have previously
discu$ed at a Waigani seminar and in a presentation to a gathering of environrnentalists
(Richardson, l98l). But I believe the thene has particular relevance because of the'Pacific
Ieland potential to teach the rest of the world a leseon in the ert and science of biological
self-arfficiency which ultimately we shall all need to learn.