Solomon Islands kills off new logging licenses
Rain forests in Solomon Islands. Photo credit: mobile.ztopics.com.
The Solomon Islands’ Ministry of Forestry has stopped issuing licenses to new logging companies.
In a move to control the industry, Permanent Secretary of Forestry Vaeno Vigulu said they would implement the moratorium under the Forest Resources and Timber Utilisation Regulation of 2007.
It is otherwise known as a legal notice 114.
Mr Vigulu said they started implementing the legal notice 114 to restrict non-members of the Solomon Forest Association (SFA), and new logging companies, from pursuing logging activities in the country.
“We will also notice and also ask non-SFA members to wind up as well,” he said.
“It is open for them to challenge the Government but we will implement what has been endorsed by the Cabinet in 2007.”
Mr Vigulu said there were more than one hundred logging companies operating in the country.
Seventy-seven of those companies were members of the SFA, he said.