By Thomas Huliambari
Prime Minister James Marape left the country today to attend the One Forest summit in Libreville in the Republic of Gabon, to join the heads of government and ministers of state of Rainforest nations in the world to discuss forest management.
He was accompanied by the Minister for Forest, Salio Waipo and Minister for Environment, Conservation & Climate Change, Simon Kilepa.
The meeting will take place on the 1st to the 2nd of March this year where Prime Minister will present the country’s statement.
“At the Summit, I will deliver a Country Statement and hold bilateral discussions with the Presidents of the Republics of Gabon and France and other leaders on how we can protect and preserve the rainforests of the world in a sustainable manner.”
Prime Minister Marape is confident that he will achieve a positive outcome from this Summit. He expects to move away from presenting the same Statements and hearing the global community continuously remind us to preserve our environment at annual conferences such as the Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings and the United Nations General Assemblies, etc.
It is clear that Article 6 of the Paris Agreement has no provision for environment conservation; hence this Summit will address this significant gap area.
“I will be discussing options to work around Article 6 to find solutions that are applicable, precise and simplified to ensure that when our government makes a decision to reduce forest destruction, that the revenue forgone is replaced immediately by countries or large corporations so that we can continue to support our annual national budgets. I cannot commit to large conservation arrangements without the clarity and simplified processes with respect to compensation on revenues forgone when all forms of logging are stopped.
“PNG has extensive forest coverage biodiversity that we want to properly harness and develop to support the livelihood of our rural communities. The data on resources coverage and potential logging revenue losses will be shared with the bilateral and multilateral partners to clearly demonstrate the trade-offs. This data must define processes and systems committed conservation arrangements which are tagged to compensation.
“Domestically, we will also work with Total Energies, ExxonMobil and Santos to ensure their carbon footprint effectively delivers on preserving our forests.
“PNG is a large forest nation with a large carbon sink. It also has development aspirations, which need to be appreciated by the global community. Achievement of global emission reduction targets must not be at the expense of development aspirations for countries like PNG. These are the critical trade-offs that must be taken seriously at the Summit.
“I will issue an ultimatum to the Summit that I will uplift the proposed round log ban in PNG and proceed to harvest our timber resources because we need to be able to raise our own revenue through export taxes to support our socio-economic development aspirations.
“The PNG National Forestry Authority reports that direct revenue from Log Export Tax is K350 million on averages annually. Other relevant taxes collected by our provincial governments and districts are to the tune of K46 million on averages annually. Other revenues from the Project Development Levy brings in K5-10 million annually and direct Resource Rent and Royalty Payments paid every quarter to local landowners, equates to K10 million annually.
“If I impose a log ban the consequences will be detrimental to PNG’s revenue collection domestically as we will lose an industry that contributes K1.2 billion annually in export earnings and which brings in much needed Foreign Exchange to the value of USD$300 million per year to the Bank of PNG, which equates to around US$30 million per month.
“Indirect benefits in logging in PNG are employment creation, infrastructure improvements, shipping support, transportation and logistics service industries, generation of income for our rural communities, townships development in districts to support timber harvesting products and most importantly it provides a consistent revenue stream to support the National Government Budget.
“Enough of talk fests and rhetoric at these international meetings that does not draw a tangible outcome for PNG.
“I will be holding bilateral meetings with President Emmanuel Macron of France and President Ali Bongo of Gabon, who jointly initiated this One Forest Summit after COP27 in Egypt last year, to support the three remaining rainforest nations to access innovative financing for forest conservation as well as scientific research.
“President Macron who is a strong advocate of forest conservation will be called upon to ensure that any further initiatives by the global community must come at a premium price for countries like PNG.
“It is an opportune time to also present at the Summit, Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforest, which constitutes 13 percent of the world’s tropical rain forests and 7 percent of the world’s biodiversity.
“Our rainforest is a home to 18,894 described plant species and animal species including 719 birds, 271 mammals, 227 reptiles, 266 amphibians and 314 freshwater fish species. These are our assets that we want to preserve.
“Additionally, our rain forests are the global lungs and we have a significant proportion of this organ that keeps the world breathing. We also function as the great carbon sink and are a net remover of carbon from the atmosphere. The removal capacity from our forests is over 100 million tons per year as compared to our energy emissions, which are presently around 10 million annually.
“I also want results and therefore will be seeking an understanding on building a special set of criteria that is simplified to enable us to qualify for financial support for our adaptation and mitigation strategies.
“Going forward, I will be seeking a positive outcome at the One Forest Summit that will support our rural communities’ livelihoods, and urge the global community and developers that are continuously reminding us to preserve our ecosystem; that they must pay us for preserving our forest resources that will help us raise revenue to support our national budget” Prime Minister James Marape said.
Prime Minister will return to the country on the 5th of March.
