Implementing Agency:
Department For International Development (EPD)

Managing Institute:
CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research)

Contractor:
David Bellamy Associates

Project Code: 440-620-005	Start Date: 01/10/1990	End Date: 31/03/1993
Commitment: £200 000	Status: Completed	Type of Funding: Multilateral

Project Background:
In order to improve the Solomon Islands' balance of trade, the govenment is concurrently promoting exports several ways, including the development of the fishing industry, copra processing, tourism development and the development of plantation forestry. But there are significant environmental constraints to the potential of the two main earners of foreign exchange: fishing and logging. The natural resource base upon which both of these two are based is finite and unless policies of sustainable extraction are pursued its capacity to yield income will decline.

It is now SIG's declared policy that the current over-reliance on commercial logging will be superceded by a more diverse, sustainable approach to forest exploitation. Deriving from this declared policy, the proposed project is in accordance with the development programmes of both the Ministries of Natural Resources and of Commerce and Primary Industries. By aiming to stimulate sustainable, rurally-based, income generating activities, the project will combine important objectives expressed by each of these Ministries.

By stimulating the sustainable exploitation of forest products, it is hoped and anticipated that the project will contribute to the conservation of intact forest. This does not mean that the project's activities will directly replace logging schemes as the means of exploiting specific forest areas. It does mean, however, that by offering rural people alternative sources or income from their forest resources, the project's activities will make logging a less attractive option.

Project Objectives:
The project seeks to:

Develop sustainable exploitation of a range of forest products.

Develop products as sources of rural income, ensuring that fair prices are paid to producers, and that maximum value is added to products in Solomon Islands.

Establish a commercial framework for the production processing and marketing of products.

Develop domestic and international marketing forest products as high-value low-volume niche items.

The project seeks to contribute to the goal of forest conservation in the Solomon Islands achieved through stimulating sources of rural income other than logging.

Intended Outputs:
A mechanism for forest conservation.

FORPET - a financially self-sustaining framework for the sustainable exploitation of products.

Small businesses activities (commercially viable) x 4.

Sustainable exploitation of a range of forest products.

5 trained small business managers.

1 field assistant and staff of government trained in EIA techniques.