Ritika Pratap 
[File Photo]
The Ministry of Forestry officials have admitted to receiving complaints from livestock farmers and the public on the quality of timber products.
While responding to questions posed by the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, the Ministry’s Executive Director of Research and Development, Tevita Bulai, says the complaints are mostly in relation to pine posts.
Livestock farmers have raised concerns that they are having to replace posts for the fence in less than 10 years and it is proving too costly.
Bulai says the Ministry has a forest preservative treatment regulation in place and is also monitoring all licensed timber treatment plants in the country.
He says they are working closely with the timber retailers.
“We have done a number of consultations in the whole of Fiji. Together, we are focusing on all these timber retailers. What we’ve also improved now is our monitoring. Before, we used to do biannual monitoring. Now, our monitoring of timber treatment plants and sawmills is done on a quarterly basis.”
Bulai states that Ministry officials have recently observed an improvement in compliance by retailers.
