Log price crash a blessing

NO country in the Pacific has been more affected by the Asian economic turmoil than Solomon Islands. The crash in log prices and drop in the volume of log exports has been so dra matic that export receipts from logging have sunk by two thirds in less than a year. The outlook for the future is for no improvement.

What, at first glance may appear to be the disintegration of the mainstay of the economy, may well turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Logs are Solomon’s biggest export but for years the Central Bank of Solomon Islands has been warning that Solomon’s forests were being cut at a rate that was dramatically depleting the forests - so much so that if the cut continued the Solomons would have faced a similar economic disaster, within a decade, when it ran out of forests.

The price crash and resultant slowdown in the industry have provided a breathing space for landowners and governments to come to grips with the rape of their forests before it is too late.

The same could also be said of Papua New Guinea.ln both places, however, fast work is needed because, while export receipts are down by two-thirds, the pace of cutting is only down by around one third. If you take a look around, you will find there .are already some alternative ways of utilising forests that are pay ing big dividends for the whole community.

In Solomon Islands for instance the eco-timber industry is real ly hitting its straps.

Five separate communities around the country are now export ing eco-timber to New Zealand and more are producing for the local market or preparing for export. The most recent new exporter is a community on the Island of Big Ngela in the Florida’s group.

In late 1996 they were approached by Marving Bros, the com pany at the centre of the long-running dispute on Pavuvu Island, and sought help from the Solomon Islands Development Trust.

At the last minute they decided not to go with the sort of log ging which saw Pavuvu logged out within a year and half, prefer ring instead to do the work themselves.

After training in cutting and milling techniques from SIDT and Greenpeace, they exported their first shipment in June this year.

Their first run, of 20 cubic metres of timber, was small but its benefits undeniable. The community made of profit of around Sls3oo per cubic metre (which is anywhere between 5 and 10 times what they would have made in royalties on the same timber) and their forest is still intact for further use in the future.

The village elders were particularly pleased because the labour intensive nature of the work engaged the young men, made them feel good about themselves and gave them a reason to stay home

1 ■ ■■ In) J 1 ■■ »} ■ ■■ ' s' ■ . nr and despair.

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I ■ ■ '■' ■ ' ! ing with local communities on a larger scale to produce sawn tim ■ id nany - ■ ti ies

are using portable sawmills.

In both places, however, fast work is needed because, while down by around one third. industrial logging is a highly damaging business which leaves forests as only a pale imitation of their original form.

An upcoming article in the highly respected international jour extinct come from Oceania. Of those now critically endangered, 10.6 per cent are in our region.

Perhaps it is time to take a leaf out of Fiji’s book and focus on plantation logging and value-added industries, which create more jobs and higher and more stable export earnings.

In the latest crisis for instance, the price of sawn timber has dropped by only 10 per cent.

Fiji’s success in establishing value-added businesses (eg furni ture, building products, sawn timber and woodchips) has, in a large part, been the result of its long-standing ban on the export of round logs- a ban which has stood up to all but the worst post coup economic times, in the late eighties, when it was lifted for a short time. Securing such a ban is not easy.

Logging, being a fast-turnaround, high cash-flow industry, brings with it corruption which weakens governments and divides communities.

At the same time, governments have economists, from the likes of the World Bank and the IMF, arguing that market forces (favouring round log exports) should be allowed to rule.

Considering the findings of PNG’s Barnett Enquiry (which likened logging companies to all-powerful robber barons) the mar ket is hardly a mechanism that is likely to result in an outcome which benefits current or future generations of Pacific Islanders.

Much has been said about the possibility of establishing suc cessful value-added businesses in PNG and Solomon Islands, with the companies arguing these countries are to small to sustain such industries. Considering Fiji’s success with a much smaller resource, that is highly debatable.

Ml that is iceded is some olilics 1 will an - a detem inal >r c to be done over by companies that have no long term commitment to the people or the region. ■

Jemima Garrett

Sydney