Papua New Guinea retains the moral high ground

The deal to deforest the rainforests on 60,000 hectares of Woodlark Island for massive plantation of oil palm trees appears to be dead:

Vitro Plant, developer of a proposed oil palm project on Woodlark Island in Milne Bay, is said to have withdrawn the project…. It is believed Vitro’s withdrawal is due to pressure from environmentalists and non-governmental organisations to conserve the natural habitat of Woodlark Island.

Still, I’m looking forward to seeing someone do an analysis of deforestation generated by palm-oil for the whole country, since this article claims:

Mr. Hickey [Minister for Agriculture and Livestock] said oil palm was the largest income earner in the agriculture sector in Papua New Guinea. He said the value of export in 2006 was K660 million compared to coffee and cocoa at K337 million and K204 million respectively. [Note: $1 U.S. = 2.8 Kina.] Mr Hickey said the value of export of round logs in 2006 was K490 million. He said the world market demand for oil palm was very high and would remain high and with the increase in both production and price, the value of export would increase in the medium to long term.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 12:28 pmand is filed under international. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Papua New Guinea retains the moral high ground”

  1. Jay Alt Says:
    January 18th, 2008 at 7:31 pm

    Woodlark Island location and pictures -

    http://www.galenfrysinger.com/woodlark_trobrian.htm

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