FAO Forestry country profiles - forest management
History
Forest management and silviculture
Migrants first arrived in Papua New Guinea more than 50 000 years ago and since then, forest clearing has constituted a significant part of the way of life. People have been responsible for considerable modification of the landscape and large areas of rainforest have been subject to clearance over the past 300 years. The extensive grasslands of the highlands are thought, for example, to be the result of repeated burning of forest cover. Throughout the lowlands, forests have been extensively destroyed or modified by shifting agriculture. Industrial logging in coastal areas of Papua New Guinea commenced in the early 1920s. Sawmills were established to cut timber for building churches, schools and hospitals. Demand for Papua New Guinean timber increased after World War II. Log exports became a viable proposition in the 1950s, while commercial sawmilling was expanded. Plywood manufacturing also commenced during that decade. At the same time, reforestation began and has been carried out sporadically ever since.
In 1968, a 5-year forest development programme was announced. The major objectives were to rapidly increase export earnings and employment through establishment of a fully integrated forest industry. This was a catalyst to a tremendous increase in logging, supported by policy shifts favoring log exports, and coupled with high timber prices in Southeast Asian markets. The logging industry expanded beyond the capacity of the regulatory authorities and relationships with indigenous landowners deteriorated. These problems led to an official Commission of Inquiry in 1989, which described a forest industry in turmoil, with widespread malfeasance, pervasive corruption and an ineffective forest administration. The Commission¿s major recommendations included institutional, legislative and policy reform. In response a new Forestry Act was passed in 1991, creating the Forestry Authority, and implementing changes to strengthen controls over logging activities, and streamline leasing arrangements with customary landowners.