Dear Editor – An estimated 93 percent of the country’s virgin forest has been lost the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Forestry and Research, Mr Vaeno Vigulu, announced in a recent speech.
The main drivers of such deforestation having been commercial logging, he cited.
Fortunately, at the last hour, so to say, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Ministry of Forest and Research sealed a five-year Forest Management project last month.
The project will focus on capacity development for sustainable forest resources management and hopefully will assist in developing an effective forest resource management model that will boost capacity building and transform livelihood approaches giving resource owners and the industry at large a better position on harvesting the county’s forest resources.
Yours sincerely.
Frank Short
www.solomonislandsinfocus.com