THE Fiji Hardwood Corporation Ltd (FHCL) is in talks with the Fiji Mahogany Trust for future plans to develop clear contractual arrangements with landowners on the use and operation of heavy machinery within their respective areas.
FHCL board chairperson Iowane Naiveli said this approach would strengthen transparency, improve mutual understanding, and support long-term, structured partnerships between FHCL and the landowners.
“Importantly, these arrangements have the potential to create additional economic opportunities and income streams for landowners, beyond the usual stumpage fees, lease payments and land management fees already received,” Mr Naiveli said at the recent commissioning of the company’s new $2.7m fleet of machinery in Nukurua, Tailevu last week.
“Through this approach, FHCL aims to empower landowners to establish and strengthen their own corporate companies, cooperative or credit unions (or saving schemes), enabling greater participation in the mahogany industry and creating more sustainable long-term benefits for their communities.”
Mr Naiveli said this action would empower and reinforce landowners to save and also do investments.
He said they continued to recognise that landowners remained the backbone of the mahogany industry.
“We remain committed to ensuring meaningful participation across harvesting, transport, plantation work and other forest-based opportunities, guided by inclusive and accountable corporate entity.”
FHCL chief executive officer Semi Dranibaka said their main focus was seeing that the project was sustainable and landowners also generated income in the process.
“We do the proper training, we do the proper monitoring, we do the proper planning, so that people know that ‘I need to work to get this money’, ‘this is my target’, ‘this is what I should achieve in one day’,” Mr Dranibaka said in an interview.
“Those are the kind of things that we should be working on with the landowners so they also know that money is business. It will take this kind of initiative to start to push our landowners.”
Mr Dranibaka said FHCL’s focus at present was paying off the newly acquired machinery, before it leases it out to their landowners to operate it as a business, and contribute to higher harvesting yields.
