Yumi Stori, the Development Dialogues Papua New Guinea (PNG) Podcast

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Yumi Stori, the Development Dialogues Papua New Guinea (PNG) Podcast, a groundbreaking series brought to you by Concept Management. This platform is designed to spotlight important development issues and transformative solutions shaping the future of PNG.

In our very first episode, we delve into the rich biodiversity of Papua New Guinea and its immense Value for Nature. Home to some of the world's most unique ecosystems, PNG faces the challenge of balancing conservation with sustainable development.

This episode is proudly supported by the Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (CEPA) in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) GEF 6 Sustainable Financing of PNG Protected Areas Network Project,  whose ongoing efforts have empowered communities to protect biodiversity while generating tangible economic benefits. From pioneering Protected Area initiatives to fostering partnerships that combat climate change, we’ll explore how these projects are redefining PNG’s environmental stewardship.

Join us for an engaging conversation featuring distinguished guests from the Government and development partners — Ms. Kay Kalim, Director of Sustainable Environment Programs at CEPA, and Mr. Nicholas Booth, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme. The discussion is facilitated by Ms. Patricia Kila, National Safeguards and Engagement Officer for the GEF 6 SFPNGPAN Project, as we kickstart this vital dialogue and celebrate Papua New Guinea’s remarkable natural heritage while charting a path toward meaningful action.

If you would like to support an upcoming episode, please reach out to our team at conceptmanagementevent@gmail.com 

Stay tuned and follow the Yumi Stori Development Dialogues Papua New Guinea – where the voices of PNG drive progress.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Good day, everybody. I'm Patricia Kela from the UNDP. I am pleased to facilitate this dialogue between UNDP and also the government of Papua New Guinea on a number of issues, but basically the biodiversity conservation aspect and development in this country. I would like to introduce, firstly, Ms. Kaye Cullin from the Conservation Environment Protection Authority, representing the government of Papua New Guinea. And secondly, I'd like to introduce Mr. Nicholas Booth, who's a resident representative of the UNDP. So without further ado, as we are thinking of the COP, the CBD, Conservation of Biodiversity Conference of Parties, and all the global issues of climate change as well as biodiversity conservation. But importantly, the impact on people, our people in Papua New Guinea and protected areas. The first question I would like to pose as part of starting the conversation is, The UNDP has been in the country for a number of years and has been working very closely in collaboration with the government, especially on biodiversity conservation and protected areas in particular, and also climate change. So in terms of that development, Bosmer K, how would you consider this partnership with the UNDP? And also in your capacity in attending all the previous CBD, COPS, all the global meetings that happen on the biodiversity as well as climate change. And the partnership with the UNDP and the UN in general. I would like to pose that over to you. How has that partnership helped the country of Papua New Guinea and the people in particular? Thank you, Patricia. Firstly, I'd like to thank the resident rep from UNDP, Mr. Nicholas Wood, for making time available to join me as we go through this segment of wanting to share the experience, the lessons learned over the years that we've been working together. SEPA being the representative of the government of Papua New Guinea and UNDP definitely representing the other UN organization as well, but basically in countries. So stepping back a bit, looking at the progress so far, we've started this journey together way back in the early 2000. Even before that, we had a lot of other things that was happening originally which UNDP was coordinating through, but back in 1992 when the Earth Summit started in Brazil, there was a lot of work going on behind the scenes, not here in Papua New Guinea, but globally. UNDP was always there, so we as a government representative we wanted to partner with UNDP. So back in 2005, 2006, we started the journey. But even prior to that, we had a lot of other conversation, including a couple of retreats that helped the government of Papua New Guinea to structure its environment strategy. And that, in a way, paved a lot of these opportunities that we currently are working together on. We started off this journey back in 2005 into 2006, developing the fourth cycle of the GF allocation through GF4 when we worked on the project. We, in a way, set the foundation for working on protected areas in Papua New Guinea and especially the country. So we worked together and worked on the protected area policy, which was supposed to be the basis of doing a lot of protected area work in the country. So UNDP was there with SEPA. We worked together throughout that journey in ensuring that we complied with the international obligations put to Papua New Guinea government when we signed up to the CPD Corp and eventually becoming real good partners throughout the past couple of years in working towards achieving the biodiversity targets globally that was put to us as a country. So yeah, the journey was very interesting. from the beginning and we have our own ups and downs, but we're working towards that and improving as we go along. But yeah, the policy really sets the platform for us to have a lot more conversation when we talk protected area and especially working in a regional arrangement that UNP need to guide us both financially, technically, and help us achieve the targets that we really need to. Achu. Thank you. And Nick, are there ways that the UNDP can also enhance this relationship? What's your opinion in terms of the whole of government approach and the role of UN?

SPEAKER_01: 5:29

So first of all, I mean, thank you very much for inviting me here. So it's great to be part of this conversation. You know, Papua New Guinea has an extraordinary importance for us in the UN, and that's why I'm very, very happy to have the honor to be able to serve here especially in relation to biodiversity and climate change because the fact is I mean Papua New Guinea being one of the world's most mega diverse countries you know with like seven or eight percent of the world's biodiversity even in a country that's only about one percent of the world's population and with the third largest rainforest in the world after the Congo and Amazon it's it's clear that if we are serious when we talk about biodiversity and seriously talk about addressing climate change, the world needs to really be a strong partner of Papua New Guinea because its importance is way outside its size. And so we really need to be able to see the world step up and actually recognizing that it's one of the world's most impacted countries by climate change, maybe in the world's top ten, that it needs an extraordinary support for the sake of the world because this biodiversity is incredibly important for the world. I think we in UNDP need to play our part in making sure that PNG stays on the world stage and gets the support that it needs for the sake of the world's biodiversity and climate change. Within the country, I think it's really important for UNDP to help bring all the different parties together. So the world is changing very fast. We talk a lot about climate finance. We talk a lot about there being a huge new revolution in climate finance, and P&G needs to benefit from that revolution. But at the same time, P&G is a unique country in many ways. And one thing which is very powerful about P&G, that in other countries, you know, biodiversity targets 30 by 30, they're very much kind of set top down by the government. That doesn't happen here. It can't happen here because of the unique land holding system here, which is absolutely in the hands of communities and indigenous people, which is a great thing. And it means that biodiversity here happens completely from the bottom up, but that poses its own challenges. So we need to find a way working with the grain, working with the cultures of this extraordinary diverse country with thousands of different ethnic groups and hundreds of languages. How do we actually manage to get a policy that works for the whole country? How do we actually efficiently attract finance here? And when most of the work is happening at the level of communities and from the bottom up, how do we actually build the capacities of communities to be able to actually make their livelihoods from nature-based solutions? These are huge challenges. And I think that what Papua New Guinea can learn, it can also teach the world. So I think that this really should be, you know, country of absolutely top-rank importance in terms of really working out how biodiversity is going to be preserved, how nature-based accounting is going to become the norm, how we are going to move towards blue and green economies. If we can't make that happen in Papua New Guinea, we can't make it happen anywhere. So that's the excitement for me, but the challenge also.

SPEAKER_00: 8:48

It's a real challenge for these nature-based solutions. Kay, I would like to ask you, working on the PNG protected areas policy, how do you see that actually coming into fruition with some of these nature-based solutions? Can you give us some examples of one or two of those solutions, possible solutions, and also how SIPA will be able to facilitate that and make that happen at the government level? I guess when we started the process, as regional resident reps sort of pointed out, there was always that challenge because it's always a bottom up arrangement in Papua New Guinea. And the beauty of doing bottom up is we are already engaging with the people out in the communities. And the law that we are implementing in country is unique in a way that it allows the people to come forward to the government to indicate their interest in doing protection. And that is different from the Western society, which is more science-based and you look at an area that is really researched out and you get the data from that and you make the decision to make protection. Whereas in Papua New Guinea, it's a different scenario together. And that is why we feel that we are quite unique in a sense in doing protection. If we look at nature-based solution in helping these communities to solely depend on the environment as their one-stop shop. So we talk about medicinal stuff, which comes from a forest. We talk about our food. We talk about the building materials. They all come from the forest. So we treasure the forest. But at the same time with the current situation, they also want monetary value to the environment they are so attached to. So in that sense, it is more challenging now. in us trying to find what type of nature-based solution that will be first offered to them and then is it sustainable. So one thing that comes to mind that is probably seen as a quick fix is more the payment for environmental services. If you take an urbanized area, for example, with a community which is looking after the watershed, and I'll take the program as a case here because must be the national capital district is built around a very dry rain shadow area so we've got six to seven months of dry period throughout and it's solely based on dependency on how the water resources is managed in the hills of Quarry so the catchment becomes a value now and so in terms of nature-based solution how can we best translate that value to that monetary bid that the communities inquiry as well as NCD would appreciate living with. And that is also a challenge because we then have to consult with all the communities and they also have their own traditions associated to how they deal with the environment. But then we take the land tenure as the basis to start negotiating. And if we can get everybody to think on doing protection, then the land tenure system with customary know-hows comes into play in helping the government in now going through this probably legal arrangement in getting their consents. And that's when we could really roll out the payment for environmental services. And that in Papua New Guinea is probably a quicker way of dealing with nature-based solution than talking about other things which We probably see it, but we don't really value it. And so some of the effort that UNDP has come to aid the government through conservation and environment protection authorities is basically trying to make that value visible. So ordinary Papua New Guineans would appreciate what the value is in the environment. So they will then tend to help the government to protect it. And probably that is currently the situation now that the nature-based solution we all want to see it and believe it so we want to make that value of the environment visible and thank you UNDP for coming and working with us and with the support from the global environment facility that we are putting that out now and hopefully we could make that available to the government for them to see the impact the current environment has on our economy and work with us to build that nature-based solution to the next level. Okay, thank you, Kate. I think you implied on the report, value for nature report that the UNDP has facilitated with the government on the value of nature and raising the profile of that. Nick, what other suggestions or advice can you offer in this space in terms of nature-based solutions? for Papua New Guinea. Is there a role for UNDP in terms of facilitating policy dialogue with other partners as well as with government in terms of nature-based solutions or climate finance, et cetera, in the same space.

SPEAKER_01: 14:15

Well, first I want to say, I just want to say, I think Kay was absolutely right to talk about that report. And I think we, I'm very proud of the work we did together on that report, but I completely agree with her. We need to raise much more awareness about that report. I think this is a really critical issue here because the fact is, unless we are actually able to make, we talk about making nature's value visible and we talk about the potential value of biodiversity and nature-based solutions here, until we've actually made that a reality, we are going to lose the war against deforestation, logging, and so on. The fact is, as much as we say these things, to be honest, if you're in a community, I know communities want to preserve their forest, but if if we can't actually provide them with sustainable livelihoods based on nature-based solutions, what choice are they going to have? And so we can't blame them if ultimately they allow logging and deforestation into their communities because we have to provide them with those solutions. Realizing these things, when we talk about payment for ecosystem services, it's an urgent thing that we have to take it from the report, from the theory, into the practice. It's actually a very difficult thing around the world. It's still at a very early stage. There are not enough examples in the world of successful payments for ecosystem services. But I actually think that they will come here in P&G first. Actually, you gave a great example, Kate, because I remember being surprised one day when I was at, oh, you know, the Lando from up the mountains are turning the water off to PNG, Port Moresby, because they're not getting enough payment for their water. So they're just going to turn it off and there's going to be no water here. And I'm like, wow. I've never heard of such a thing. But of course, it's exactly as you said. In fact, the landowners, they are the landowners. They have the power. They should be properly compensated for the water, which is an essential resource, as you say, for kind of drought-prone Port Moresby. So actually, the landowners, when I thought about it, they were doing the right thing. They are not being adequately compensated for the value of the services they provide. We actually have to help these kind of things. We have to set up proper systems for payments for ecosystems, But the complication about all of that, a lot of different people need to come together. So on the one hand, Treasury needs to understand climate and biodiversity, even though the kind of people who work in Treasury, they don't tend to have that kind of background. Similarly, you know, people who work on biodiversity, people who work at SEPA, need to become experts in finance. And, you know, maybe that wasn't the first thing that you learned at university either. You know, people at UNDP have to kind of become experts in both, like me, right? We all have to learn a lot, and we have to bring people together across these different disciplines, because this is getting very complicated. Actually, it's a great thing. There's huge innovation in finance. So actually, whereas a few years ago, you couldn't really have talked very much about the subject, now we can say, yeah, actually when we come to finding financing for nature-based solutions, it could be a debt-for-nature swap. The country could issue green bonds or blue bonds. We can have blended finance so that we can help entrance into the private sector by adding a little bit of a loan guarantee or something for the the moment is a risky market, but help it get established. We can support the development of new markets. And we have to develop new markets in this country because the current economic model is based on extraction. It's based on mining. It's based on using up assets. It's based on environmental pollution. This is a tragedy, a nightmare, a huge threat for a country like PNG. It's the wrong direction. And I understand it's taken that direction because at the moment, extraction has been an easy way to bring much needed wealth and prosperity into the country. But at the moment, that prosperity is coming at the expense of nature-based solutions. So we have to make a huge change. And so we need to actually use all of these different financial tools, many of them being developed only for the first time now. Many of them hardly tried elsewhere in the world. All of them, we need to think about them for Papua New Guinea. To do that, we need to bring the banks, together with the Treasury, together with CEPA, together with CCDA, because climate change and biodiversity are very intimately linked, together with the private sector. And all of us need to be around the table talking about what different new forms of finance, what different new ways we can actually turn these great ideas about payment for ecosystem services, nature-based accounting, into real problems. livelihoods, real solutions that will actually enable communities to be able to keep their extraordinarily biodiverse communities and biodiversity, but also be able to make livelihoods for them and their children. This is the challenge that we have, and we all need to solve it together. I think one thing UNDP can do, because we have great relationships with everybody, with civil society, government, private sector banks, financiers, we have international contacts, we can actually help bring everybody together and facilitate this conversation so that that change that we need to see is going to happen.

SPEAKER_00: 19:36

Thank you very much, Nick. That's a very innovative and also challenging way forward for government. I just want to pose to you, Kay, what is your role? What do you think your role is, your role in terms of mobilizing other government departments to get involved? For example, Nick mentioned the Department of Treasury. What do you think about that whole of government approach that government can facilitate with the support of development partners. Thank you, Patricia. I guess when we started this process, especially when doing the protected area policy, we tried as much as possible to have a government team. Together, so we did involve the national planning, which is one of the key organization in the government that needs to be informed of, Department of Treasury, and all the other line resource developers to be part of that arrangement. But at the most, we went to the regions and engaged with the civil society, the communities who are really doing protection on the ground. and helping and them also allowing us to learn from them and them learning from us to appreciate the process initially. Now that we've got the policy up, we would really want to now engage with the core government agencies who are the ones that really deal with resource allocations on how government can roll out its strategies and policies. Department of National Planning and Monitoring sort of come seen to be sitting with us in all the projects that we are implementing with UNDP definitely. We do have Department of Treasury, especially the Department of Finance being part of those committees as well. But then we would like to strengthen them through various other arrangement. And out of the policy, there is an opportunity for us to have what we say, round tables, protected area round tables. And that in a way would really help us engage with all these line agencies who are dealing with environment one way or the other, whether doing protection or just extracting, and then linking us back with the provincial administration at the sub-national level. So we can all sit together and discuss about the issues that are relevant to what we are doing. And that also invites the private sector to be to be with us. So if I can go through how the implementation of the global environment facilities supported programs, which is really implemented with UNDP and also other UN agencies, we normally have the project board that also involves all the players within a project site. And then that in a way also allows us to engage with the provincial administration And that is the real building block that we want to ensure that we work through those line of government arrangements so we can be able to really go down to the grassroots level and then work our way back. Because the land that we all want to work towards getting some consent from the people are owned by the people. So we need to engage with them from the beginning. So hopefully, If we can improve on our relationship at the national level, working our way down to the wards in the communities, then we can be able to strengthen this relationship. But that is basically dealing with communities. But then when we come to the line agencies and we talk CCDA, we talk PNG Forest Authority, we talk National Fisheries Authority, we talk Mineral Resources Authority, all those are extractives. CCDA and SEPA needs to... probably step up and work very closely together because a lot of the things that we are now putting them through implementation, they need to go ahead in there. And so we do acknowledge that climate issues, climate is just a minute component of the environment itself. So working in isolation from the big picture also creates issues between agencies who are supposed to be partnering together. When we now look at getting out from the national scene into the region and then beyond, we can be a voice if we go as a group rather than individuals. So, well, Climate Corp is there, Biodiversity Corp is there, there's various other corps and international organizations that we are all party to, but we don't go in as A government, we go in as individual entity in trying to break that barrier. And so we are challenged in terms of voice. We can go and partner with the regional island communities. We're still a minute group there. That experience bringing back into the country, we as agencies leading in biodiversity and climate change need to now mobilize ourselves within the government circle. So we can have Department of Treasury being there talking to us with respect to that for nature's work probably. We can have national planning leading the way in implementing the medium term development program too. And we can have the provincial administration coming in to help us also roll these activities out. So I think CCDA and SEPA needs to now coordinate ourselves to bring all these line agencies in so we can go as a voice and as a government team rather than SEPA and CCDA trying to work. In that, we will now build probably trust with the other line agencies to work with us. because PNGFA and National Forest Fisheries Authority, whether they work with us or not, they have money to implement the activities, while SIPA especially does not have that support from the government. So we would like to partner with private sector at some point to break through and see if we could be able to implement some of these global agendas that are put forward to us. But CCA and SIPA, We need to work together and then bring the other line agencies to be with us. So hopefully our protected area forum will help us drive that thinking through. And eventually we have the core group to be always working together. So we talk international meetings. At least the core group is there to facilitate at the highest level to the lowest level. But we have the core group. Thank you. So this is leading up to the COP now. COP16 is just around the corner. And you've touched on the need for a whole-of-government approach. What preparations have CIPA done in collaboration with CCDA, if any, in preparation for I would say interventions or any side events that might happen. And also maybe Nick, you can help me out here in terms of the expectation of Papua New Guinea in terms of meeting our targets and PNG as a country, how it's going to be doing that. So it's a question to both of you in terms of that consideration maybe SIPA you can probably answer as well noting that extractives is quite a big presence in the country and we are aware that SIPA also issues the environment permits for extractives as well maybe that might be one area that you might want to touch on in terms of looking at that and your experiences with the extractive industry in terms of policy dialogue as well. Sorry there's a lot of questions that I'm posing to each of you but I'm sure that you can answer it in a way that is constructive and more progressive. Thank you, over to who wants to go first Nick?

SPEAKER_01: 28:38

So I do think that the COPs represent an extraordinarily important opportunity for PNG. I've talked about PNG's outsized global importance in terms of its contribution to, I mean, its potential contribution as a net zero country with the extraordinary tropical rainforest and the biodiversity. I think we need to hear PNG's voice loudly in COPs. I understand there are a lot of developing countries find the COPs very frustrating. And I understand that sometimes some nations are kind of almost persuaded or tempted to disengage because they say, what's the point? There's just a lot of talk. Nothing is actually changing. Well, we in the UN, we understand the frustration with processes of engagement and talking, but our experience is engagement is still the only pathway to change. It's always longer than you like, more exhausting, more frustrating, but that is how change happens. And I think that it's critical for countries like PNG that the world needs to hear the perspective perspective and the voice of PNG. And it needs to hear that PNG is impatient for the climate change support, the financing that it needs to come and address the nature-based solutions in this country. So I think that we should not disengage from the COP and I hope that PNG will be very present in the COPs. Our role in UNDP and other UN agencies is really to support PNG in helping have its voice heard as powerfully as possible. And I think that we should take the opportunity if we can through side events and others to really showcase things. I particularly want us to showcase the biodiversity and climate fund because that's something I'm very excited about. We, UNDP and CEPA, we created it together on the model, using the best models around the world for conservation trust funds. We brought together private sector government, UN agencies, development partners, civil society on the governance of it. I think that something like the Biodiversity and Climate Fund, as long as it can remain trusted by all parties as an independent conservation trust fund, that no party can use or exploit so that people will be trusted to put their money through it and they will trust that it will actually be the best conduit for different forms of financing to be channeled through to the communities and to nature-based solutions. The best place to be able to give the capacity building support and the research and all of the different dimensions. I think that that role is critical for the BCF. Critical if we want to get payment for ecosystem services going where the issue of integrity is important. And we have only two years left to transition the BCF from its current incubation to the point where it becomes a fully fledged, independent, trusted PNG organization. I think that we need to get that work going now, but at the same time, we also need to raise its profile on the global level because I think a lot of climate finance and biodiversity finance is looking at PNG, seeing opportunity, but not understanding how to address it and not quite sure whom to trust or through whom to work. So I think that we should use the COPs to show how our joint work on the Biodiversity and Climate Fund is providing a channel to be able to bridge the international climate and biodiversity finance and bring it successfully and in a trusted way down to the level of the communities.

SPEAKER_00: 32:37

Thank you for that, Nick. My perspective on participating at COP is more trying as much as possible, knowing that we are another developing nation. We need to go and beg somewhere. And COP is probably one of those venues that our political heads need to utilize in order to really lobby hard. Because I know practically in one of the CBD Corp that we attended with the minister, that was the bottom line. We had to make a lot of requests to meet with the CEOs of especially GF and we succeeded. And in a way, our GF4 complimented that by the country being awarded a grant as a country rather than being part of a region. So my belief in attending COP is coming up strategically with an agenda that we would want to use COP as a possibility and selling it. And that is probably where we need to work as a group and not as an individual because climate COP, there's gonna be COP 29. CBD COP, it's only COP 16. and it's more half of COP, Climate COP. So people tend to ask, why Climate COP is COP 29 and CBD COP is just 16? There's a lot of answers to that, but for my take, CBD COP's biannual. And a lot of the things that is subjected to that, there were these two key technical committees that work prior to going to COP. So a lot of those issues are discussed, deliberated on, and then the technical papers are eventually subjected to the COP to sanction. But for Papua New Guinea, in order for us to make a better intervention, we need to go through all those technical papers to see what will really change the way we are doing things here. If we really want to change our way of doing things nationally, then we need to structure that position well before going into COP. If we don't have that, then it's a waste of time going in there. But then we have that opportunity to have those side events and each country being signatory to that, we are given that opportunity to showcase what we could offer. And I'm glad that you raised BCF because in the past COP, COP15, we tried to showcase BCF at COP15 and we were received really widely. And a lot of the people who were in the room wanted to know more about how we went about coming up with that arrangement. So that was a positive stroke coming from a government perspective. For this COP, we now have 20 by 30 targets that we need to implement. And we've got a very short timeline. We have 20, 30 in five to six years time. And we are asked to achieve 23 targets. Man, that's a lot for Papua New Guinea. And with no resources, we're gonna be now leaning towards donor partners, UNDP, we've got FAO, we've got World Bank, we've got USAID, we've got all these partners. And we would want to work through them in order to achieve some of these targets. And for us, Because we're talking about 7% to 8% of the biodiversity that we want to really showcase, I think it's about time that government needs to really structure itself up to come up with a strategy to bring to COP that, OK, we have this biodiversity that will become the lungs of the globe. What is there for us to use in a way convince those communities who are doing protection and for them to continue doing protection because they know that their livelihoods would be looked after. And that is probably the biggest challenge we have. So if we have to go to COP16 and we've got 20 by 30 targets that we need to report against, and we just only started last year. We are still going through reviewing our NBCEP that in a way needs to be aligned. And we don't even have the country targets that we could use to align against the 2030 targets. So we've got a task that we would probably work towards. And even before we go to COP, we'll have some preliminary country targets that we would now want to go and share at the COP level that This is what we can do before 2030, but we would really need a lot of resources to help them. And that is the challenge we currently have. So for now, we would like to partner with CCDA to ensure that what we speak at the CBD Corp is what they'll be speaking at the Climate Corp. Because we talk a lot about sea level rise, coral bleaching and all that. And if we don't talk biodiversity to be part of that, then we have an issue internally here. And I think what we need to do now is we start strategizing, go as a whole of government to the CBD Corp and then picking from that, we could probably improve and more customize down to how the climate Corp can be used to address. same issues and and by then we could be probably on our way to implementing not all the 23 targets but at least the main one target three which is something that we're doing protected area work and hoping that if we do it properly and we can be able to address target one and two and there's other down the line that we could be able to also address and that also leads us to doing a lot of resource mobilizing in helping the communities who could be then doing that work on their own, and we will only coordinate. But then it goes back to human resources, funding, technical support, and we would probably really go begging to all the development partners to help fulfill some of that, which government needs to put its money forward, but it's not working that way. So UNDP, several will always come knocking on your door, hoping that you will now lead us to other partners who are probably ready to help. And that in a way, I don't want to dwell on the BCF, but I would hope that with the current board, you'll be able to work through and come up with mechanisms in doing more fundraising to help us roll out.

SPEAKER_01: 40:03

I think what will help us, you know, we really need more of a, we need a clearer lined up plan. So we've talked about how many different partners there are. You've mentioned there are many different development partners. You've mentioned the importance of having a common story between CCDA and CEPA because biodiversity and climate change are part of a single story. And you have said that story has to be the same story that we tell of both COPs. I think that's really important. I mean, I'm not sure that we are quite where we ought to be in terms of the clarity of the government vision that encompasses all of these, all of the environment, biodiversity and climate change. And if we have that very, very clear vision and that very clear pathway, then I think it would be easier for all of the different development partners to line up behind it. It would be easier for the finances, the banks to line up behind it. So when we talk about bringing everyone together, it's not just having people around the same table. we really need to hear from the government a really unified, clear vision that links all these things together in the way that you've spoken about. And I don't think that we quite are where we need to be on that. That's something which I think we should work on a little bit more. And that will really help actually be able to catalyze more action when people actually see what the path ahead looks like.

SPEAKER_00: 41:24

Actually, when we did the protected area policy, And eventually we developed the protected area bill, which is currently been enacted, not yet enforced. But the delay itself, we had the bill ready for parliament in 2018. It took us all this year just to get it through the parliament. in 2024. And in the bill itself, we talked about offsets, biodiversity offset. And at some point, we were cautioned in delaying the process in getting it to the parliament because some experts thought that we bring in the climate carbon offset into that. And it was like, in a way, confused the situation. And so we didn't really understand what the biodiversity offset can do and what the climate carbon offset could do. And so trying to put them together in one law created some confusion amongst the technical people. So eventually we got rid of the climate carbon and allowed the biodiversity offset to go through. But then when we talk biodiversity offset, one of the Key things that we were informed of going through the process is the climate component that impacts on that. And that's where the Global Climate Fund came into focus on. How can we be able to access those funds? And so we talked about infrastructure. We had the BCF now put in place. And the BCF is not actually meant for only biodiversity component. We had to bring in the sea to take care of the climate. And I think at some point, We would want CCDA to appreciate and accept the BCF as theirs as well. Because for now, they are more talking about a trust fund that will look at all this GCF and carbon payments and all that stuff. And they're forgetting that we've already set up an institution that would cater for them too. And so one of the probably call now from the government will be trying to roll out the BCF. Why the BCF? And there's probably five or so thematic areas identified, and one of them is to do with climate mitigation. And so if that can be pulled out and featured prominently to be the driver in selling why we have BCF, I'm pretty sure we would have some good people coming forward to invest their money in how we use that to start talking protection in mangroves and also we've got a lot of small island atolls that really needs this support. And Papua New Guinea being the bigger country within the Pacific, a lot of our Pacific Islanders are looking at us on how we progress the BCF because I do recall in COP15 when I presented under the Sprebside event, we had a lot of support coming from the Pacific Island communities who were there that wanting a similar type of arrangement for their countries, but then they were only talking about marine biodiversity because they didn't have the forest. Well, we have the forest to also talk about. So the five higher Melanesian countries of the Pacific, needs to also mobilize and we work together when we talk COP. Rather than just focusing on other things, we also talk about fundraising as well jointly so BCF can be also probably an avenue that could also support other Pacific Island countries to start off with. And I believe we can be able to push that agenda if we coordinate ourselves importantly in-house. And working with CCDA will be probably the way to go.

SPEAKER_01: 45:09

That's a really important point, and I'm glad you brought it up. We keep forgetting because, you know, it was set up on the model of a conservation trust, but it's unusual, and I think visionary, because it actually signals that climate mitigation and adaptation are just as important as biodiversity and that it's actually set up to work for both. And you're right, we haven't yet realized that as much as we should. And CCDA has... I think they've certainly become more active and more engaged partners in the BCF this year. That's a very welcome sign and I want to see that continue. I think it's important for CCA too because this mechanism is right there and ready to work for them. The fact is that this country needs to develop its pipeline for climate funding quite a lot. Actually, there are not very many GCF projects in the pipeline yet. as many as there should be. So when we look at other countries and the degree of investable pipeline that there is, I mean, looking for financing, but actually here in PNG, with all the potential that we have, we don't have that reflected in the pipeline projects from small to big. So we actually have a lot of work to do right across the scale, and the BCF could play a huge potential role in that. So I completely agree with you. This is something, part of the awareness raising that we need to do internally. And then as you say, the BCF should grow to the level where it can be a model. But you make an important point about the acceleration that we need to do. I mean, the fact is we are in a race against time, Kay. And you've said it took five years to get the protected areas bill through parliament. And even now we must wait before it's even actually kind of. Okay. I'm going to start timing because, you know, it's sitting under a shroud, right? It's waiting on the plinth, waiting to be launched, but it's still a cloth over it before we can actually release it. We need to actually step up the action on that urgently and so many other things because if you say that it's only a few years to 2030, but we are in a race against time in relation to biodiversity and climate change, so we actually need to run faster.

SPEAKER_00: 47:20

You talk about the finance and, you know, globally through the GF, after COP15, the countries agreed that we should have a funding arrangement that GF would house. And that's how the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund grew. Those funds are available. Accessing is something that the GF will then come back to its accredited agencies. And I'm pretty sure all the UN agencies are part of that. Being a country and trying to access that, And we are challenged by all these other countries who are also bidding for the same money. But we have the upper hand because we have the 7% to 8% biodiversity care that could be used as a basis to say, look, you're going to give me that money to help me sustain this. And that is the voice that we need to now package to take it to COP, to tell the high-powered industrialized nation that you either give it to me or I start... cutting down my trees. And I think tomorrow onwards, when we talk protected area through the forum that we are wanting to see it roll out with, bring communities in, they want to also know where the financing is coming from. And if that finance that is allocated, and because Papua New Guinea has just put us off on the map with our biodiversity and the third largest rainforest globally, we should be treated fairly. And given that sum of money, and I guess BCF is there for us to tell GEF or who are the financier that we have the means for you to invest. We are ready to roll this program out. And I think that is where the strategies for the BCF must be very clear as well. How do we go about using that to start fundraising? That's how I see it personally being. They're trying to probably help put the BCF together, I really want to see it go to that next level and start doing a lot of fundraising and working towards its independence come 2026. And it is just around the corner.

SPEAKER_01: 49:38

I want to see the same thing, but we have to do our part. I don't think it's just a lack of interest in P&G or something like that from the other side. I think that the money and the interest is there for that financing. But you know, we actually have to show them the way. So, you know, we could talk about the huge potential for biodiversity offsets. No question about the potential. Huge potential also in terms of the private sector, right? A huge potential for voluntary offsets. But we haven't actually developed those products. We haven't shown how that's going to happen. We haven't developed the projects so that people can actually see, yes, okay, with, you know, with$20 million, you know, investments in this, these are the, this is the way that the money is going to flow. These are the communities that will... implement it, this is how, these are the targets that we will meet with that money. We haven't really shown that way clearly enough. So I think that we do have a responsibility on our side to do a better job with actually spelling that case out very concretely in terms of what the projects are, what we will achieve, how we will achieve it, and developing those different financial products and mechanisms to make that happen. So that must be where we focus our efforts in the next couple of years.

SPEAKER_00: 50:49

And thank you for raising that because we are also trying out possibilities of doing nature-based solution in the marine space, which Kimbe Bay sort of comes into focus in how we're trying to do this blue economy incubation programs out there, and then we're doing the land base. But at the same time, we want to now bring in the private sector. And I'd like to see our current programs leaning towards how can we best also bringing the private sector to work with us. And only we celebrate World Environment Day on 5th of June. And it's during that week we see all the private sectors coming out in arms and doing a little bit of coastal cleanup and doing some planting. And when that week ends, everybody goes back and they forget about the environment. We want to make that well environment day become a daily thing for every Tom, Dickie and Harry that's out in the street. The private sector talking about extractive, they need to also start talking well environment day as well. So bring the private sector to be engaged directly with our protected areas community is probably one of our goals now in 2024. And hopefully we could roll that out properly. And I'd like to probably take this opportunity also to thank the project on forest climate change and biodiversity, which is coming through the European Union, through the French government. But in a small way, they're trying to help us come up with some mechanism in bringing the private sector into the room now. So if we start tomorrow talking protected area with the communities, learning from them and trying to showcase some of the conservation commodities they are working on as part of their livelihoods. We're trying to look for markets and then backing that up with what we call a private-public dialogue. And in that, we would want a lot of private sector to be represented and a lot of media coverage. And definitely, the practitioners should be there. And that is probably an avenue that we would want to see how our private sector in Papua New Guinea, how are they willing to work with our protected area communities in promoting this international global agenda that we all talk about, the 23 targets out from 2030. The 30 by 30 is there, and we would want private sector to combine. If we do the protected area, if we sell that properly tomorrow onwards, then We could be seeing a lot of private sector participating with us and not actually waiting for World Environment Day for us to come and clean up Ella Beach, but we were to do it on a daily basis. That means programs needs to be now put together and continuously rolled out and support both technically and financially. Government has produced a lot of technical experts who were poached by private sector. And I want to challenge the private sector. You've allowed the government to train a person And you took them away from the government because of the money that you offer. Now give us that money back for us to implement the program with the communities. That's basically what my call could be to the private sector. I hope they don't hate me for that, but I'm pretty sure they are waiting to work with the government to implement this 20 by 30 targets. We'll get there. Thank you. I think on that note, and the focus on BCF as well, and the private sector public dialogue, moving forward, I think there's a lot more to work on together. Thank you very much, Rosemary Kay, and also to Nick as well. Thank you. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_01: 54:46

Yeah, it's been a fun conversation.