THE Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Forestry and Research, Vaeno Vigulu, is said to be optimistic the country’s forests will recover.

Mr Vigulu told the SIBC, in a recent interview, the country had good soil and a favourable climate for forestry re-growth.

He commented that the country’s forests have suffered from logging more recently, but he said he was confident forests would recover.

“We just need support from the resource owners to allow forestry officers to go inside to give them advice, to help them reforest where natural regeneration has failed,” he told the SIBC.

I do hope the resource owners will work closely with the Ministry of Forestry and Research and, together, begin enriching the land where the natural vegetation has failed.

I would also encourage the SFA to play a leading role in aiding resource owners to enrich the soil on their land for the SFA has demonstrated its commitment to several worthy causes on many occasions and what can be more worthy for the Forestry Watchdog than aiding re-growth of the forests.

It is understood the Ministry of Forestry is yet to implement a proposed national forestry inventory to determine the status of the country’s forests.

The re-growth of the country’s forest is absolutely vital to prevent further degradation of the land, river and water pollution, loss of habitat and combat the ever growing impact of climate change.

Yours sincerely

Frank Short