Driving Factors, Preventive Methods And Strategies For Deforestation And Forest Degradation In East New Britain Province Of Papua New Guinea

The aim of this research is to provide an estimate of the forest land area being deforested and degraded in the East New Britain Province, and how to re establish the loss from the forest if there are possibilities in some ways.East New Britain is amongst one of the provinces that are looking forward to attain rapid economic development. This has led to vast felling of timber (logging) in the forest areas to meet demands for increasing timber exports as well as establishing large plantations for oil palm and cocoa plus other economic crops.This research mainly illustrated the key drivers for deforestation and forest degradation, describes the actors and discourses driving deforestation and forest degradation and further stated the underlying drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. Furthermore, the research has presented some figures indicating the total forest area being deforested, potential timber forest, and non forest areas and so on.The present study is an integrated approach of information retrieved from previous studies, primary data obtained from the field sources as well as incorporating local knowledge information on the specific study topic. The research method that was used in this study was based on qualitative methods, where observations and interview on focus groups were conducted in order to come up with my results.The total sample of household was 300, which our questionnaire survey was conducted based on the local people’s perception on the importance of forest resource, villagers’ perception regarding laws governing the Forest resource, villagers’perception on forest land change with reference to driven factors of deforestation and forest degradation and villagers’ perception on the intensity of forest clearances by driven factors. The questionnaire forms were analyzed with Microsoft Office Excel for counting, percentages, minimum, maximum, average value and standard deviation. The research result showed the villager’s perception on the importance of forest resource with 12 activities with total average value of 41.8 on strong level and the highest average value activity was that the forest is important for culture and tourism attractions, with the average value of 4. Villagers’perception regarding laws governing the Forest resource was at strongly level with the total average value of 30.9, which the people’s opinion on poor governance by local politicians at strong level with average value of 3.71. The villagers’perception on forest land change with reference to driven factors of deforestation has the total average of 35.8 on strongly level where most people’s perception were on wicked alliance of foreign loggers with 3.72 on average. The villagers’perception on the intensity of forest clearances by driven factors has the total average of 13.38 on very high level where most people’s perception were on commercial logging & large scale agriculture with both on 3.12 on average.This study has suggested that most of the changes to the forest vegetation which lead to deforestation and forest degradation is evident through commercial logging including the (FCA) SABL projects where by logging has to take place before the agriculture concept is applied. This has accounted for an area up to 299187.5 ha being deforested and degraded. The statistical analysis for the driving factors according to household interviews as also indicated commercial logging to be the most cause of deforestation and forest degradation with the level of very high at average value 3.12...