As a result, the companies portray large-scale, industrial logging as the only development option. Many landowners have succumbed to the pressure and allowed their forests to be logged. Too often Melanesian communities have discovered that the reality of logging does not match the promises of the company. Unscrupulous business practices leave local people with little or no monetary benefits. When the logging company has moved on, it is the local community that is left to pay the full cost of environmental and social damage.
Customary landowners face enormous pressure to sign agreements with logging companies.
WWF Fiji Project coordinator Kesaia Tabunakawai in Fiji's mahogany forest.