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Papua New Guinea's First Multi-Purpose National Forest

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The Papua New Guinea Forest Authority was established on October 16th 1991 by the Forestry Act of 1991 (as amended). Its mandate as a responsible state agency is to sustainably manage PNG forest resources as a renewable resource for the collective socio-economic benefits of the present and future generations. Papua New Guinea’s first multi-purpose National Forest Inventory Project Proceedings This publication includes the full proceedings on the preliminary findings of the NFI supported research topics funded under the European Union multi-purpose National Forest Inventory Project Editors: M.P. Poesi, M.T. Piafu, Dr. H. Abe and Dr. R. Turia © Papua New Guinea Forest Authority, PO Box 5055, BOROKO, National Capital District 111, Papua New Guinea Poesi, M., Piafu, M., Abe, H and Turia, R. 2008. Papua New Guinea’s first multi-purpose National Forest Inventory Project. Proceedings of a Research Conference held in Lae, Papua New Guinea, 14-15 February 2018. NFI Project Proceedings, 188p. 1 Contents Foreword 4 1. An outline of the Multipurpose NFI Project and its first Research Conference 5 2. Opening Remarks and Launch of PNGNFI Field Manual and Mountain Partnership 6 Project 2nd Phase Dr. Ruth Turia, Director – Forest Planning & Policy Division, PNGFA 3. Official statement by EU Head of Cooperation, EU Delegation to PNG 7 Mateja Peternelj 4. Forests in a New Landscape and How the PNG NFI Can Play Its Role 10 Andrey Kushlin, Deputy Director FAO Forestry Department 5. Measuring forest land-use change between 2000-2015 14 Gewa Gamoga 6. Developing a model approach for assessing levels of deforestation and degradation for addressing 32 REDD+ in Papua New Guinea Perry Malan 7. Using GIS and Remote Sensing for land cover classification and change detection: 40 A case study of Oomsis concession area, Morobe Province, PNG Maman Tavune 8. Land-use and land cover change assessment from 1995 to 2015 using GIS and remote 49 sensing techniques- A case study in a logging concession in Gulf Province PNG Oala Iuda and Sailesh Samanta 9. Forest Policy now and for the future 59 Dambis Kaip 10. NFI cluster accessibility assessment using Open Foris Collect Earth and Cluster –Plot design 77 Oala Iuda and Elizabeth Kaidong 11. Estimation of the targeted number of NFI plots and clusters 82 John Pena and Lauri Vesa 12. Estimating forest biomass and carbon stocks from four major forest types in PNG 85 Bruno Kuroh 13. Tree species diversity in relation to altitudinal gradients and forest types in Papua New Guinea 90 Miller Kawanamo 14. Patterns of Fern Species Richness and Beta Diversity in Highland Ecosystems of Papua New Guinea 96 Gibson Sosanika 15. Tree species composition and forest structure in primary and secondary forests along elevational gradient in the upper Mape area, Papua New Guinea 101 Eko Maiguo 16. Non-Tree Plant Diversity in Lowland and Montane Rainforest in Papua New Guinea 112 Tiberius Jimbo 17. A Preliminary Data Interpretation and Analysis on Understorey Vegetation Cover along Five Forest 118 Types of Papua New Guinea Penniel Lamei 2 18. Preliminary assessment on Syzygium in two different extremes (Ecological and bio-geographical) 126 Kipiro Damas 19. Forest recovery pattern and species diversity following disturbance in PNG 133 Professor Simon Saulei 20. Measuring soil carbon in the NFI soil survey: Summary report by the NFI soil sampling team 142 Sam Nalish 21. Soil Carbon modelling across forested landscapes in Morobe 149 Leroy Moripi 22. Fruit fly Species diversity and composition of fruit flies (Teohritidae: Diptera) across different 156 forests in PNG Redley Opasa and Ruma Umari 23. The effect of habitat types on bird communities at different elevations across PNG: Exploration of alpha and beta diversities and species abundance 162 Bulisa Iova, Osia Gideon, Katerina Sam & Vojtech Novotny 24. Diversity and community composition of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea 176 Jacob Yombai, Alfred Mani, Austin Sau, Ondrej Mottl, Peter Klimes, Osia Gideon and Vojtech Novotny 25. Species Turnover in Moth (Geometridae: Lepidoptera) Communities in the Forest of Papua 182 New Guinea Jason Paliau, Joachim Yalang, Kipiro Damas, Vojtech Novotny, Alfred Mani, Steven Sau and Buya Morgan 3 Foreword The European Union (EU) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are funding PNG’s first multi-purpose National Forest Inventory Project (NFI) to gather information on the forest and land use change, upper plants, non-timber plant diversity, soil carbon and nutrients and biodiversity species in PNG. The NFI has been planned to assess 1000 clusters, covering 4,000 plots in 12 forest types across PNG. PNG has taken a global lead in its efforts to combat climate change, particularly by proposing measures to reduce carbon by preserving and sustainably managing tropical forests. PNG has been part of the global action through adopting the concept of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (RED) in international negotiations such as COP11 in Montreal in 2005. This concept was later expanded to include forest degradation and other management objectives and is referred to as REDD+. The implementation of REDD+ requires accurate national scale forest monitoring, and emphasis is now on significantly improving key areas such as boosting the national capacity on remote sensing based forest assessment in PNG, advancing the national scale information on carbon stock subject to different disturbances, and transforming management practices to sustainably manage the forest resources. With the completion of the NFI, PNG anticipates to gather credible information on carbon stock and accurately estimate Green House Gas emission from deforestation and forest degradation. The NFI is implemented by PNG Forest Authority and other key partners, namely New Guinea Binatang Research Centre, the PNG University of Technology and the University of Papua New Guinea. International partners such as the European Union (EU), the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and UN-REDD as well as the Italian Development Agency under the auspices of Mountain Partnership Program and the Crawford Fund are supporting the NFI through the provision of funds and technical support expertise. Others also providing similar support, are organizations such as the Sapienza University in Rome, Italy and the University of Queensland, Australia through the Mountain Partnership Program and the Forest Practices Authority in Tasmania, Australia via the Crawford Fund. The research conference was designed to provide an avenue for the exchange and sharing of research methods, and preliminary results among project scientists and the project stakeholders. It also provided an opportunity for discussing and formulating future research directions, as well as strategize NFI implementation plan for 2018. Key speakers that officiated at the opening of the Research conference included, The EU Delegation to PNG representative, Ms. Mateja Peternelj who gave the official statement, Deputy Director of FAO Forestry Department in Rome, Dr.Andrey Kushlin, and the Director of Forest Planning and Policy Division, Dr. Ruth Turia. The preliminary results from the various research topics reaffirmed our research methods and represent the type of information expected to be generated at the end of the project timeframe. The contributions by Dr. Hitofumi Abe and Dr. Ruth Turia for their editorial directions and those from Mr. Michael Poesi for coordinating the preparation of these proceedings are greatly appreciated. Tunou. A. Sabuin Managing Director PNG Forest Authority 4 An outline of the multipurpose NFI Project and its first Research Conference New Guinea is the largest tropical island in the world and contains the third largest tropical rainforest after Amazon Basin and Congo Basin. The country of Papua New Guinea (PNG) comprises the eastern portion of the New Guinea Island as well as numerous islands and archipelagos. PNG is a well-known centre for biological endemism and diversification. Currently PNG’s tropical rainforest is relatively well conserved. The PNG Forest Authority (PNGFA) recently produced a national forest base map with assistance from Japan International Cooperation Agency, and conducted remote sensing based national forest assessment with the assistance of the UN-REDD. Both studies showed that PNG’s forest covers 80% of country’s land area and 60% of the forest are undisturbed. Nevertheless, the forest is coming under increasing pressure, due to resource extraction, especially through logging, and also from land clearing for mining and agriculture. Despite their extent, size and rich diversity, PNG forests are poorly known scientifically. PNG’s first NFI will make a significant scientific contribution towards understanding PNG’s tropical rainforest and the biodiversity within. Since the UN-REDD PNG National Programme commenced in 2011, the methodologies of the multipurpose National Forest Inventory (NFI) for all NFI components including tree inventory, non-tree plant biodiversity, ornithology, and entomology and soil survey were established and documented through extensive review studies and discussions at a number of workshops and meetings. Forest in PNG was stratified and all plot clusters were mapped. All the required capacities for the NFI implementation were built within the PNG Forest Authority (PNGFA) by other implementing partner agencies through numerous in-country and overseas trainings for all the NFI components. The NFI was launched by
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