He said Keating was misleading the international community, adding that the Australian Prime Minister was coming out with a lot of propaganda against the development of Solomon Islands' timber industries to protect his country's softwood industries. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Francis Billy Hilly on Tuesday announced the suspension of the logging licence of a Malaysian company, Kumpulan Emas Bhd, for alleged illegal forestry practices. The Australian reported that Keating also lashed out at Japan and South Korea, accusing them of exploiting the small Pacific islands through illegal fishing activities. Mamaloni said Keating and Hilly should be reminded that unlike Australia and New Zealand, the Solomon Islands land ownership and tenure system was one of the most comprehensive in the region. Mamaloni said the Forestry Act was one of the most stringent in this region and licences to fell trees and export log or timber took at least six months to obtain by investors.
Every licence specifies the area of the timber concession and the authorised quota per year.
Records are available for Keating and Hilly to see that almost all the logging companies in the Solomon Islands have had, at one time or another, their operations suspended for non-compliance with the requirements of the law and landowners' agreement. Very few companies are known to have exhausted the quotas given to them by the forestry division. Similar to the Forestry Act, Mamaloni said, the country's law on fisheries was the toughest in the South Pacific region. The fisheries division together with the police, he said, had arrested more than a dozen intruders since 1983, including the crew of the American ship, Jeanet Diana. Mamaloni said the penalties for breach of the country's Fisheries Act were severe compared with those in other countries.