Sawmillers in Vanua Levu harvesting pine in overplanted areas may have their licences revoked after Fiji Pine Ltd, through their lawyers, demanded for such action.
This was made known in a letter addressed to the Ministry of Forestry and handed out to landowners during a meeting in Labasa yesterday.
The letter, from Young and Associates (Fiji Pine Ltd’s lawyers), stated they had been instructed that some sawmillers had started logging operations in the overplanted area of 268.27 hectares.
“We are further instructed to demand, on our client’s behalf, that you issue notices also to these sawmillers informing them of the revocation of the respective logging licences to ensure full compliance with the revocation of the logging licences,” the letter stated.
“On behalf of our client, we are demanding that any and all logging licences issued for these areas be immediately revoked as the pine stock thereon belongs solely to Fiji Pine.
Fiji Pine has the relevant records to attest to the good husbandry practices it has carried out in respect of these purportedly overplanted areas.
“It would, therefore, be improper for any third party to claim ownership of the pine stock in these areas and benefit from the harvesting of Fiji Pine’s pine stock.”
