FOREST OWNERS ENCOURAGED TO DO DOWNSTREAM PROCESSING

Forest resource owners must be encouraged to do downstream processing.
The Minister for Forestry and Research Job Duddley Tausinga made this emphasis when he took delivery of portable sawmills and reforestation equipment funded by the Taiwan government yesterday.

He said resource owners must also replant logged land areas to minimise the disastrous effects of unsustainable timber harvesting.

Mr Tausinga says the rate of timber harvesting is at alarming rate, and in 2007 it stood at one-point-five million cubic meters, which is four times the annual allowable rate.

Mr Tausinga received the sawmills and equipment from Taiwan’s Ambassador to Solomon Islands, George Chan, on behalf of the Members of Parliament and the timber resource owners who are recipients.
________________________________________