heats up in PNG

Carbon trading heats up in PNG

By Brian Tobia

PAPUA New Guinea will become the first country in the South Pacific to receive the World Bank’s direct involvement in the improvement of its environmental sustainability pro grammes.

The World Bank awarded a grant of US$l5 million (K 32.6 million) to Papua New Guinea through Conservation trust Fund of PNG to fund conservation-oriented projects in the country. The Trust Fund, cur rently being formalised, will provide an ongoing reliable source of in-country fund ing for bio-diversity conservation and ecol ogy of sustainable development projects.

It will be a non-govemment entity gov erned by a multi-stake holder management board, which will supervise the appoint ment and activities of a professional man agement unit. The idea was mooted in June 1987 and was aimed to solicit funds to sup port conservation projects in the country.

PNG, under such arrangement, will become the first country in the South Pacific to benefit from this type of help from the World Bank, following three years of negotiations and feasibility studies after the Earth Summit held in Rio and Brussels in 1995. The global environmental objec tive is to improve the management and con servation of important forest eco-systems in the world. Twenty countries, including on of the world’s most bio-diversity-rich

regions, Brazil, are being assisted by the World Bank in forestry and conservation projects. For PNG, the project will develop procedures for landowners to make their own decisions in using their forest.

GEF’s Conservation Finance and Policy director, Sheldon Cohen, said the first instalment of US$5 million (K 10.87 mil lion) would be made available by June 1999 for draw-down to support a portfolio of demonstration projects in the country and the balance of US$lO million (K 21.7 mil lion) at the end of three years for the endow ment fund. He said CTF should seek other donors to meet the second instalment on a kina for kina basis. This is to ensure that the ultimate goal to build an endowment of more than K3O million is achieved to gener ate about K 1.5 million to K 3 million per year in investment income for conservation projects. Cohen said this is the first biggest trust fund TNC has catalysed in the Asia- Pacific region and the “largest single bio diversity grants ever awarded by GEE - one of the largest awarded by any donor for a CTF and possibly the largest single bio diversity grant for PNG”.

The trust fund was initiated so that it would be used to facilitate programmes to encourage “sustainable use of natural resources” in the country and prevent greater destruction of the environment.

However, the government strongly believe that encouraging conservation will slow down logging operations in the coun try. Through the Department of

Environment and Conservation, the govern ment wants to ensure that an equal amount (of the funds) is directed to implementing existing conservation projects. The govern ment, through the establishment of a new institution called PNG Institute of Bio diversity (PINBio), aims to study plants and animals that have the potential to derive medicines from and explore possibilities of carbon emission trading. Department secre tary Dr Vari lamo said the government “does not want to see the NGOs taking over all our functions in terms of conservation” although it was a very important project.

“And we want to see a proportion of the fund spent on existing national-level priori ty projects,” he said. lamo said the department would like to see the trust fund cover the entire nation so that no province would miss out. He said they have created an NGO desk within the department to be the link between the pro ject and them. Dr lamo said the fund has the support of his department.

“Too often commercial development is driven only by the short term considerations of immediate benefits and too often this involves serious damage to environment and conservation values. Support is needed to conserve PNG’s bio-diversity and to help landowners with a development that is eco logically sustainable in the long term”.

He said it was a great test for PNG to embark on the conservation of its forest resources. Environment and Conservation minister Herowa Agiwa, while announcing

Cabinet’s approval of the establishment of PINBio, said PNG’s natural resources including vast forests have been exploited and exported for revenue but the new bio diversity project may set some light on con servation.

“We can conserve our forest and earn money from it instead of logging it. We con serve our forest and charge developed coun tries to pay us because our trees absorb the CO2 emissions,” he said.

According to Agiwa, carbon emissions trading is one of the areas the new institute (PINBio) would be looking at as a potential revenue source. There would be a total halt to logging practices if the sustainable use of forests in the country becomes successful. , The institute’s role is to conduct research into the two types of conservation indus tries. These are bio-prospecting and carbon emission trade, said University of PNG aca demic, Dr Simon Saulei, who is seconded to DEC on the carbon emission trade pro ject. Dr Saulei said by conserving the forest or planting new trees in grasslands “we can generate more revenue for the resource owners and government over a long period of time”. “These two industries would gen

crate billions of kina over a long period of time unlike non renewable resources like oil, gas and minerals, so we ” would be doing our part in try ing to get this industry established in PNG,” he said.

PINBio is an institution that would be directed to conduct research and devel opment into the two major areas.

Bio-prospecting looks at types of plant and animals, both on land and in the sea, to research and screen them. This is to find out what sort of chemicals they have and whether those chemicals can be used for treating all kinds of diseases. Research and development would be done in the area of climate change.

“The submission that was made is not only addressing the issue of generating rev enue for the resource owners and for the government but also to enhance approaches to different strategies for conserving our very diverse biological resource like plants and animals,” he said.

Carbon emission trade research is a three-year project and a national commu nication network would be developed and presented to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change Secretariat. ■