Tuna industry resents European Union accusation

By Natalia Real of Fish Information & Services (FIS)


 A tuna industry delegation from Fiji responded with ire to the media statement released by the European Commissioner Maria Damanaki, warning eight countries that the Commission thinks the sector has not done enough to fight illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The group expressed their dissatisfaction during the annual meeting that the Pacific Islands Tuna Industry Association (PITIA) is holding in New Zealand.
A recent independent review by European Union (EU) consultants, GOPA, scored the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Papua New Guinea as low-risk IUU countries, and Kiribati and Fiji as medium-risk.
"We want these countries as partners but we also want to signal to the world that the EU will not tolerate illegal fishing — a criminal activity which undermines the livelihood of fishing communities and depletes fish stocks," Damanaki said.
The Commission’s decision has not entailed any measures affecting trade, but it could. The eight countries have been notified and offered a “reasonable” time to respond and to “rectify” the situation.
The Commission also proposed an action plan for each country and informed that, should the situation not improve, the EU would include them in a blacklist and may take further steps possibly involving trade measures such as a ban on selling fisheries products to the Union. The warning was also addressed to Panama, Belize, Cambodia, Guinea, Sri Lanka, Togo and Vanuatu.
PITIA communicated that it fully supports Fiji’s concerns given the country’s actions and the processes it has implemented, such as its very strict compliance system. Fiji is also in the process of strengthening its monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) tools, by applying an Offshore Decree to control activities of flag state vessels on the high seas.
The association also highlighted that actions to improve compliance throughout the Western and Central Pacific Ocean are receiving support from the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).
The country's Ministry of Fisheries and Forestry (MFF) applies 100 per cent inspection on all vessels landing into Fiji, including foreign ones and applies a vessel monitoring system (VMS) to all its tuna vessels and an observer scheme, according to PITIA.
MFF has already sent two submissions to the EU’s DG Mare informing them of the steps being taken, and is now revising its National Plans to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (NPOA-IUU) with assistance from Devfish II.
“To say that Fiji does not participate in enough dialogue is rather strange given its efforts to strengthen what is already a very strong monitoring, control and surveillance system,” PITIA stated. “Strange then that other countries that demonstrate higher levels of risk have not been singled out for attention.”

Australia lamb exports to PNG up 58%

By DEANNA LUSH of Farm Online

 

OVERSEAS markets are lapping up Australia’s record cheaper supply of lamb but yardings and slaughter numbers are tipped to plateau to the end of 2012, market analysts say.
Volumes exported during October to the Middle East were up 79 per cent on 2011, China up 69pc, Papua New Guinea up 58pc and the United States up 25pc.

While total exports for October had been 18,574 tonnes shipped weight, the record had been driven by increased supply and cheaper product, reflected in saleyard prices to growers.

Overall, while the volume of Australian lamb exported was up 17pc on 2011, the value of those exports was down 4.3pc.

Rabobank senior animal proteins analyst Sarah Sivyer said exports had been higher because of increased supply in Australia, making our product more affordable on the international market.

“The number of lambs slaughtered in the first 10 months of 2012 is up 32pc on the same period last year. That’s the obvious thing,” Ms Sivyer said.

“The reduction in value (of exports) is being seen strongly in the US, which is Australia’s largest value export destination. From January to August 2012, export volumes have increased 6pc on the same time last year but the value of those exports has decreased 22pc.”

The slight lift in the Eastern States trade lamb indicator last week – up 3c/kg carcase weight to 351c/kg - was because of restockers coming back into the market.

She expected rain last week would see many producers hold onto sheep and lambs if conditions improved.

Meat and Livestock Australia chief economist Tim McRae said stock numbers coming through for slaughter were likely to plateau for the rest of the year.

He did not expect to see large yardings in November and December like there had been in 2011, which was part-seasonal and part-income pressure.

“Recent rain could provide some flexibility to hold on to numbers,” he said. “This year has been so far ahead of last year’s slaughter numbers, we may have seen some of the numbers come in early.”

FarmOnline

Source: http://www.farmonline.com.au

BSP community projects for 2013 kick off in Lae

BSP has commenced its community projects for 2013, with its first ground breaking taking place in Lae, where its three branches will be combining funds, resources and people to undertake a major upgrade to the rundown Corrective Institutions Servicess (CIS Buimo) Clinic. 

The rundown state of the interior of the clinic today. The project will see a complete upgrade of the health facility.

 It’s a sad state of affair at the clinic, which is a major referral clinic to the Angau Memorial Hospital. The clinic provides health services to thousands of people in the surrounding Buimo, Bundi Camp and even Taraka suburbs, apart from the CIS personnel and inmates.

 The ground breaking ceremony for the community project was held last Thursday, November 15,  attended by BSP staff, warders and inmates. 

Lae Branch managers Agnes Mark (commercial) and Quilan Nongi (market) officiate at the groundbreaking with BSP and CIS staff.

 The upgrade will see a full reconstruction on the existing facility, including the replacement of termite infested timber frames, walls, weatherboards and plywoods. Sinks, cupboards and shelves at the examination room and treatment area will also be replaced. 

The project will also see the installation of an air-condition unit, ceiling fans and lights.

 CIS Buimo commander Simon Sobaim applauded BSP for its commitment not only to providing banking services but also reaching out and touching communities in a meaningful way.

 The CIS nursing officers who work at the clinic were thankful that they will now have a conducive environment to deliver much needed health services to the surrounding community.  

 This year, BSP''s three Lae branches combined and delivered a significant upgrade to the only radio therapy and oncology clinic in the country at the Angau Memorial Hospital.

 BSP’s Lae branch staff who will devote their time during weekends to assist with the project are proud to work with the communities and give back in a worthy way.

 "As the only home grown bank in Papua New Guinea, such is our commitment, as we truly understand that we have the opportunity to make a meaningful and lasting difference where it matters most," said Group CEO Ian B Clyne.

 "BSP’s commitment to give back to local communities is through a number of initiatives at corporate as well as branch level focusing on health, education, sports and the environment.

 "BSP community projects commenced in 2009, and since then has invested back into communities in access of K2 million in which the bank operates in PNG. 

"Our offshore branches, Fiji and Solomon Islands also deliver community projects in areas they operate.

 "This was typically in the form of school equipment provision and classroom refurbishments, hospital and aid post repairs, water tank installations, market and public area clean-ups, and support of equipment and funding of various charities." 

Where biodiversity abounds: Hunting for new species in PNG

Survey of the canopy with the "arboglisseur" - (La Planète Revisitée)

By Laurence Caramel

LE MONDE /Worldcrunch

MADANG - Armed with thousands of test tubes, flasks, microscopes, mouth aspirators, gillnets and compressors, Olivier Pascal and Philippe Bouchet have arrived in Madang, their departure point for their new expedition in Papua New Guinea, which started last month.
The botanist for an NGO, Pro-Natura International, and the zoologist specializing in mollusks at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris are old accomplices. They even have special nicknames for each other: "Muddy old boot" for the former and "Sea-shells" for the latter. Since 2006, they have led the biggest known research team in recent years. "Our Planet Reviewed" has taken them from Santo Island and Vanuatu to Mozambique and Madagascar in 2009 and 2010.
After two years of preparation, they are finally ready to embark on a new chapter in their inventory of the world's biodiversity, visiting one of the most richly diverse areas, but also one of the least traveled, in the world. The expedition will last three months and will include almost 200 scientists of 21 different nationalities.
The island of Papua New Guinea presents a double attraction for the scientists. It is situated at the heart of the Coral Triangle, which stretches out between Taiwan, the Philippines, the Malaysian peninsula and Indonesia. This is the world’s most bio-diverse marine environment, where two-thirds of the world's coral reefs are to be found.
On land, the potential is just as appealing. The eastern half of the island, shared with Indonesia, possesses the third-largest expanse of intact tropical rainforest, after the Amazonian basin and the Congo. The team will be based in Madang province, where the rainforest extends from the coastal plains to the edge of the slopes of Mount Wilhelm, reaching up to around 3,800 meters.
"Each new expedition is bound to lead us to the discovery of new species," predicts Philippe Bouchet, who will lead the marine mission. This is especially true as the mission will focus on species that have until now been neglected by zoologists: mollusks, crustaceans, polychaeta and algae.
"Mollusks and crustaceans represent around half of marine species; there are eight times more of them than there are fish," says Philippe Bouchet. "However, the scientific community suffers from the same problem as the general public. They're only interested in certain species, such as large mammals."
There is also another reason for this professional snub. It takes a considerable amount of time to track down, classify, and sample these small organisms, rarely bigger than a few centimeters. It can take years to declare a new species.

Oceanic ships and super-sleuths
Discoveries are made almost unintentionally; however, they do follow a precise structure. Philippe Bouchet, staying with his team at the Divine Word University campus, painstakingly goes through minute details with his team each night before dinner.
"On an expedition of this magnitude and at this level of complexity, I have to devote 100% of my time to management. You have to find the right balance between running a tight ship and one that allows researchers to fully express their creativity," admits the museum researcher, putting a dampener on the feeling of adventure that goes with these large expeditions.
If the weather permits it, around 20 divers will go down 30 meters each day to do preliminary sampling, armed with breathing apparatus, light traps and brushing equipment, etc. There is also the Alis, the oceanographic ship being supplied by the Research Institute for Development (IRD), another partner of the expedition, with its trawling net that can reach down to 1,200 meters.
For more delicate operations, the leader of the mission is counting on a few super-sleuths: divers to whom he has entrusted the targeted sampling, and a Filipino fisherman whom they met in 2004, who is second to none when it comes to maneuvering a gillnet around awkward or sloping areas on the ocean floor.
All samples will be sent to the laboratory, on campus, to be studied, sorted, photographed and packaged, then given to the top specialists after the expedition.
As well as this, artificial reefs (around 30 in total) will be installed in the lagoon of Madang after the best sites have been identified by satellite images. They will be taken out again after one year, the time it takes for them to become colonized by various species.

No time to relax or build shelters
On the humid slopes of Mount Wilhelm, surrounded by rich vegetation, Olivier Pascal is preparing for a completely different voyage. He is no stranger to extreme conditions, after his first escapades during the late 1980s in the Amazon. "It'll be bad if it rains," he admits.
Earlier, in May, they had searched for ideal locations, which has allowed them to signpost each stage of the climb. "As soon as we arrive, we have to follow the precise, pre-established scientific protocol." There are eight sites, each divided into five patches of 20m2, and prepared with traps. The sites range from 200m above sea level to 3,700m above sea level.
The researchers will spend three days at each site, and one day hiking to reach the next one. Therefore, there will not be much time to relax or even build shelters. Tarpaulin sheeting will have to do. "You have to be in really good shape, even if we have a doctor with us," says Olivier Pascal.
The scientists will concentrate on insects, which form by far the largest group, on land, of neglected biodiversity, and which represent this expedition’s main area of interest. Unlike Philippe Bouchet, the botanist can also work with a strong team of local researchers.
For 15 years, Vojtech Novotny, a world-renowned Czech specialist in tropical ecology, has been managing Binatang Research Center in Madang. He coordinated the biggest study ever done on the distribution of species in a tropical, low-altitude forest.
The results, published in 2010, have provided one of the most recent evaluations of the world's biodiversity. Olivier Pascal is hoping to prolong the exploration on the peak of Mount Wilhelm with the help of  Papua New Guinean parataxonomists trained by Novotny.
The final objective for the pair is to come up with a new estimate of the number of species currently living on Earth. "For me, that's where the real adventure begins," Philippe Bouchet confides. He is already thinking about the years in the laboratory to come, after these "three months on the ground."

PNG conditionally approves InterOil LNG project

By Rick Wilkinson
Oil & Gas Journal Correspondent 

 

The Papua New Guinea government cabinet has approved InterOil Corp.’s Gulf LNG project to be supplied by the Elk-Antelope onshore gas fields with conditions including the 50-50 split of the development between the government and InterOil.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said in a statement that Papua New Guinea’s National Executive Council had approved the 50-50 project in which the government would acquire an additional 27.5% stake over and above its legal 22.5% entitlement, which is managed by state nominee Petromin.
The acquisition would give the government a combined half interest in the Elk-Antelope assets. It is probable that some of this equity would be managed for the benefit of capital-lacking landowners.
Elk and Antelope are carbonate reservoirs, technically part of the same field, but separated by a major fault.
O’Neill alluded to the fact that the terms in which the State will acquire the additional equity still need to be agreed.
O’Neill added that the cabinet had also flagged the possibility of two separate development paths. “Cabinet approved that the project may be commercialised equally and simultaneously on a 50-50 basis between the state and InterOil based on the available saleable gas, using two separate processing facilities,” he said.
He said an internationally recognised LNG operator should operate the upstream facilities, meaning that the government still wants a major player to buy an operating stake in Gulf LNG.
The announcement also alluded to the fact that Petroleum and Energy Minister William Duma last year criticized the development for straying from the original project agreement struck in 2009. Cabinet has now approved the “conditional withdrawal” of its notice to terminate the 2009 project agreement. This is subject to the parties agreeing to certain conditions, including “developing saleable gas on a 50-50 basis.”
A Ministerial Gas Committee headed by Minister Duma has been formed, while a separate bureaucratic negotiation team has also been established with representation from the petroleum department, treasury, the justice department and Petromin.
These teams have been charged with fast-tracking the negotiations leading to commercialisation of the country’s second LNG project (after the ExxonMobil-operated PNG-LNG scheme).
A number of questions still remain.
The original 2009 agreement was based on a one-plant project of 7.6 million tonnes/year of LNG. The exact capacities of two LNG plants mooted in the new agreement have not been specified publicly, but it is likely that they would have a capacity of about 4 million tpy each.
Ongoing negotiations will also decide what form the plants will take—conventional, modular, or floating LNG. There also will have to be input from the company or group of companies acquiring an operating stake in Gulf LNG.
Another question is how the government will finance the acquisition of an additional 27.5% stake.

BSP committed to improving service to customers

BSP is 100% committed to improving the way we it serves its customers, according to group CEO Ian B Clyne.

He said BSP had been working extremely hard over the last four years to significantly improve its core technologies, systems, processes, and to significantly enhance the skills and capabilities of its staff.

BSP Premium staffer

He said BSP had achieved approximately 60‐70% of the total transformation project which commenced in 2008.

“Our achievement to date, are now clearly evidenced by the 'significant' improvements in banking access for each segment of our customer base," Clyne said.

He said BSP’s Retail Banking Business Unit, through its branch network and electronic platforms now provided the following service centres:

• ·         Rural customers: 42 BSP rural agencies will be opened in rural centres throughout PNG by year end;

• ·         Mass market: 41 branches, 275 ATM’s and 8,000 EFTPoS machines. This is also supported by significantly improved mobile phone and internet banking services;

• ·         High income customers: BSP Priority Banking Services (BSP Gold & Silver Visa Card holders) are now served by Premium Express Teller service, which is available in nearly all BSP branches nationwide; and
•   Very high Income customers: have access to BSP First Platinum Service. BSP currently has four state- of-art service centres now operating in Port Moresby (Ravalian Haus, Head Office, Gordon, and Vision City). BSP First customers may also access Premium Express tellers’ services in BSP branches throughout PNG.

“BSP also operates six Premium Banking centres in Port Moresby (Gordon, Head Office, Boroko, Waigani, Vision City, and Waterfront),” Clyne said.

“These service centres serve our corporate and paramount customers, and our retail BSP First and BSP Priority customers.

“These premium services are being expanded into Lae and Mt Hagen in the very near future.

“BSP First, BSP Premium Service Centres, and BSP Express Teller Services are staffed by BSP’s most experienced and best trained staff that provide quick, modern, efficient services in a safe, comfortable and convenient environment.

 “BSP First, and BSP’s Premium Banking Services are extremely important initiatives for BSP.

“ Historically we had a ‘one model fits all’ service model, now we have new service models that focus on improving banking service quality and availability to ‘all’ our customers throughout PNG.

 “It must be recognised that BSP First and BSP Premium Customers (retail, corporate and paramount customers) generate the majority of our revenue.

“ It is this revenue that now ‘subsidises’ BSP’s Rural Banking initiatives and electronic banking initiatives in remote rural locations nationwide.

"Quite simply BSP could not afford to roll out our BSP Rural program, and our enormous expansion of our electronic banking services (ATM”s and EFTPoS machines in shops all over PNG), if we were not generating the revenues we now earn from our high income and corporate customers.

“BSP’s service levels are still not perfect; however, we are trying extremely hard to improve very aspect of our business, including taking banking services to rural communities in a very meaningful way.

“To give you an example of our achievements, BSP has opened approximately 250,000 new retail Kundu accounts this year, that is more retail accounts than the combined retail customers of our foreign competitors.

“Before the end of this year, BSP will pass the 1 million active retail accounts milestone.

“This is more than a 100% increase in the number of retail accounts since BSP started out its ‘transformation project’.

“We want all Papua New Guineans to be able to have access to a BSP Kundu account, and we want them to be able to access their savings at BSP EFTPoS machines which are as close as possible to where they live.

“Safe, secure, convenient and cost effective banking available to everyone:  That’s what BSP is committed to, and what we are well on the way to achieving.

"BSP is truly transforming the banking system in PNG and the Pacific.”

Contributions to this blog are welcome

My blog as of last Friday has surpassed the 1 million mark and has now become of the most-trusted and credible sources of news from PNG. 
In line with the changing media landscape, what is becoming known as "Media Convergence", and growing "Citizen Journalism" worldwide, I would like to encourage contributions to my blog by way of articles and pictures about PNG, which can be emailed to malumnalu@gmail.com