Cloudy Bay Sustainable Forestry Ltd of Papua New Guinea has achieved certification by the Forest Stewardship CouncilTM (FSCTM) for responsible forest management. Source: Timberbiz
This follows an earlier certification of Controlled Wood under FSC’s Chain of Custody system in October 2011 and sets a new standard for FMA operations.
The certification proves it is possible in PNG to harvest natural forests responsibly and sustainably and supports the Government policy of 100% downstream processing.
Speaking in Port Moresby the company chairman Rob de Fégely said he was extremely proud of the effort that managing director Mike Janssen and his staff had put in to develop the management and monitoring systems to enable the company to comply with the FSC requirements.
He was also appreciative of the support given by The Borneo Initiative who funded the audit.
Mr de Fégely said that he was particularly pleased that the FSC auditors “accepted our independent assessment of sustainable yield which we reduced to 48,000 cubic metres of logs per year when we discovered that earlier assessments of 60,000 cubic meters per year were incorrect”.
He also said that Cloudy Bay was committed to community development.
“Since late 2008 we have provided significant new infrastructure in our forest management area in Central Province. This includes extending the Magi Highway by nearly 40km, erecting 36 school buildings including classrooms and teacher houses and constructing a local clinic at the Bam sawmill, which treats on average 8000 people per year.
“We are particularly proud of the fact that of the 72 babies that have been born in our small clinic, no mothers or babies have died during childbirth.
“In terms of commercial production, our staff have achieved average annual increases of 30% and while it is not where we want it to be, the 100% domestic processing of our logs into value added products are now evident in the local market.
“For example, joinery made from our high value species was used in the recent extension of the famous Airways Hotel and our treated structural timber and prefabricated houses are also beginning to appear around Port Moresby.”
On a note of caution Mr de Fégely said that implementing sustainable forest management and contributing to community development and managing their expectations, while value adding 100% of the harvest in PNG, was not cheap and it could not be done quickly.
“It takes time, money and training!”
Mr de Fégely said that the world needed to understand that sustainable forest management was not a cheap system but it was a renewable and sustainable one and therefore the wood and other forest values needed to be priced accordingly.
“For too long the world has treated wood as a cheap commodity when in fact it is a highly valuable commodity that has wonderful social, environmental and economic benefits that can be gained in perpetuity if they are managed well,” he said.
