The Papua New Guinea Forest Authority has implemented numerous donor-funded projects within the forest sector in Papua New Guinea over the years. These donor-funded projects in the past had contributed significantly to the development and growth of the forestry sector. Current ongoing forestry-related aid projects are aimed at enhancing sustainable forest management in Papua New Guinea.
Various Collaborative Partnership on Forest (CPF) members such as the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) / European Union(EU) provides development assistance funding to PNG forestry sector to undertake sustainable forest management related activities. Donor governments particularly Australia and Japan provide financial and technical assistance to support sustainable forest management in Papua New Guinea. These areas include capacity building and institutional strengthening, research and development, training, forest law enforcement, community forest management and climate change-related activities such as REDD+. The significance of such cooperation is strengthening the relationship between countries and between organizations not only financial and technical assistance but knowledge and experiences learnt in other countries are imparted when implementing projects.
In the last five (5) years (2011-2015) PNG has implemented projects funded by the Japanese and Australian government and ITTO for enhancing SFM in the country. Three that are worth mentioning are:
- Capacity Development for addressing Climate Change in Papua New Guinea project funded by the government of Japan. The main output of this project is that PNG has developed a Forest Base Map which will be used as the base for monitoring future changes in forest cover. It was a three-year project and completed in March in 2014.
- Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) project funded by the ITTO. The main component of the project is developing a timber tracking system that can be adopted by the PNG Forests Authority to assist in effective monitoring of logging operation. This was a two-year project and was completed in 2012.
- The Decision Support System (DSS) project funded under the auspicious of the Australian government was designed to consolidate all forest-related data and database that are existing in the country. The project has been completed and it is now being rolled out throughout the country. Once the roll-out program is completed, it will assist PNG to make a sound decision in the management and utilization of the forests resource as well as making reliable reporting to our international partners and other stakeholders within country.