FAO Forestry country profiles - forest management
Managers
The territorial authority with overarching responsibilities for forestry and the environment is the State Service Directorate of Agriculture, Forests and the Environment. In practice, however, most of the day-to-day responsibilities for state forest management are devolved to provincial administrations. For example, in the South Province, a Directorate of Natural Resources has responsibility for environmental management and protection, as well as the general management, exploitation and preservation of all natural resources falling within the South Province¿s jurisdiction. Similarly, the Service of the Environment and Management of Parks and Reserves, a provincial agency, comes under the Provincial Directorate of Rural Development. This Environment Service has responsibility for the protection and rehabilitation of the natural heritage and countryside. It defines management measures for ecosystems as well as the sustainable utilization of natural resources. The principal forestry research agency in New Caledonia is the Forestry Branch of the Center for International Cooperation on Agronomic Research for Development (CIRAD-Foret), a statutory body of the French Government. It performs research on the natural forest, covering knowledge of tree populations, the impact of human activities on forest and the use of forest products.
Land ownership in New Caledonia is arguably even more complex than elsewhere in the South Pacific. In the Eastland Province, the vast majority is held in customary ownership. Private ownership is concentrated, often in large holdings, in the western savannah of Grande Terre. Officially, all lands not in private ownership on Grande Terre are held by the French State. However, conflicting land claims abound among tribes because they have often been displaced one or more times by the state.