Managers

The Fijian government¿s principal forestry agency is the Department of Forestry, a part of the Ministry of Forest and Fisheries. The Department of Forestry has a primary role in enforcement of logging regulations. It also has a significant role in management of natural forests, particularly to support management decision-making by assembling a database for the natural forest resources, including maps, inventories, and GIS. Most of Fiji¿s plantation forests are managed by the Fiji Hardwood Corporation and Fiji Pine Ltd. Hardwood plantation forests established by the Department of Forestry were transferred to the newly formed Fiji Hardwood Corporation in 1998. Fiji Pine Ltd, incorporated in 1991, is expected to eventually be privatized. It manages most of the country¿s softwood plantations. Forestry research is primarily under the auspices of the Silvicultural Research Division and the Timber Utilization Research Division of the Department of Forestry.

Eighty-three percent of land in Fiji is under customary (mataqali) ownership, with 10 percent alienated freehold land and the remaining 7 percent of land under government ownership. Almost 90 percent of the unexploited production forests and 83 percent of all Fijian forests are under mataqali ownership. Fijian mataqali do not have any corporate authority to deal in land and all negotiations for the use of timber grown on mataqali lands are conducted by the Native Lands Trust Board.

Public participation in forest management

A large area of Fiji¿s forests are under customary ownership and as such, ensure a high degree of public participation in forest management. The government has, however, accorded priority to ensuring greater landowner participation in all aspects of forestry sector development. To this end, the government has put in place a Social Justice Bill which clearly spells out the increasing participation of landowners in business and commerce. In addition, as part of forestry extension and community forestry programmes, the Department of Forestry is working with a number of other agencies to jointly run forest awareness activities. These are aimed at improving awareness and educating communities on the importance of mangrove ecosystems, forest protection, sustainable forest management and relationships between forest land and marine ecosystems.
last updated: Tuesday, November 24, 2009