 Molovinaka, and a very good morning to you all. It is indeed an honor and privilege to be invited here today at the third Asia Pacific Rainforest Summit. I am proud to be here on behalf of the PG government to deliver my address at this session. I thank the government of Indonesia and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry for hosting this red summit and the coordinating partner country, Australia and the Department of Environment and Energy for their combined efforts in making this all happen. As you know, through its presidency of COP 23, PG has been building a grand coalition committed to taking action and communicating the sense of agency widely to all levels of government, to investors and financing institutions, to the private sector, to civil society, organization and to local communities. As our prime minister, the Honorable Chosaiyya Vorange Bani Marama, stated at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting this past week, and I quote, You must accelerate climate action and drive decarbonization and press for the most ambitious tug of the Paris Agreement that is limiting the increase in global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius, above that of the pre-industrial age uncult. In March this year, PG hosted the third regional Pacific NDC Dialogue, our nationally determined contributions and consultations on the regional Pacific NDC hub to support countries in the process of implementation and enhancement of the NDCs. This regional platform was called for during the climate action Pacific partnership in July 2017. Built on past dialogues in support of NDC implementation, this provided a specific platform for discussions on NDC implementation planning, linkages to SDG processes, opportunities to advance gender, translating NDCs into investable and actionable projects, and long-term development strategies under the Paris Agreement, such as the 2050 platform. As a nation, we have mainstreamed and integrated climate change into national planning and development processes, economic policy, and decision-making. This has led to the development of the Green Growth Framework for PG, the five-year and 20-year national development plans, and NDC implementation roadmap and framework for the national adaptation plan. As part of this increasingly comprehensive approach to climate change, PG acknowledges the importance of forest both in terms of achieving its Paris Agreement goals and those of the United Nations sustainable development agenda. In particular, the critical role of forest is acknowledged in Article 5 of the Paris Agreement, which addresses countries to take action to conserve and enhance forest, including through reducing deforestation and forest degradation. Furthermore, PG understands that forests are a critical part of the answer to our climate change because we know that a 1.5-degree wall is simply not possible without tackling deforestation and forest degradation and the associated emissions. Forests are a large part of our current problem in terms of continuing emission from deforestation, but an even larger part of the solution in terms of ending those emissions and enhancing the safe and natural carbon capture storage function of standing and regrowing forests. And without promoting healthy forests, we also know that our nations won't be resilient to the impacts of the extreme weather events without these natural bubbles and barriers that protects us and that contribute to healthy, sustainable livelihoods. In our Green Growth Framework for PG, we have specifically recognized the role of forests in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and forestry protected areas are mentioned as activities which focus on sustaining the natural forest resources. Renewed efforts are identified for implementation of deforestation and reforestation and conservation of natural forest. In PG, 54.7 percent or about 1 million hectares of PG is forested. Of this, 89.4 percent or roughly 894,000 hectares is classified as primary forest, the most biodiverse form of forest. Forests in this contest include not only land-based forest systems, but also the wider mangroves and seagrasses and reef systems that are critical to island nations. However, we also have large areas of degraded and unutilized land with potential for broad reforestation and afro-station activities. As a country, we are committed to ensuring we place the protection of our remaining forests and the pursuit of restoring degraded areas at the heart of our national response to climate change. To achieve, we embarked on the following. One, PG has embarked on a comprehensive red-plask strategy which continues to assess issues such as drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, strategic environmental social assessment, feedback, grievances, redress mechanisms, carbon rights, and benefit sharing mechanisms. We have a red-plask demonstration site and MRV systems being finalized. PG has been working with the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility of the World Bank and the SPC-GIZ Regional Programme, coping with climate change in the Pacific Island region, as part of its red-plask readiness work. This includes the intent to develop an emission reduction program to cover 90 percent of the land area of Fiji and 94 percent of forested areas in Viti-Lebu, Wano-Lebu, and in Tabeuni, and the sale of 3.6 million red-plask emissions, reduction between 2019 to 2024 to the FCPF. This readiness work also includes Fiji working closely with the University of Hamburg to establish its forest preference level work that is almost complete. Fiji has legally declared and protected forest and nature reserves, as well as a government-managed national park. This national park is a model for other parks and has been replicated around the nation as community-based, equal-tourism projects to improve livelihood and alleviate poverty, economic development, and biodiversity conservation. The communities living around this national park benefit from employment in managing the park and economic benefits from tourism activities. This national forest park was also awarded the Certification of Excellence winner in 2015 by Trip Advisor as a Global Tourism Survey Recognition and the Queen's Commonwealth Cannopy Award for Forest Conservation. Fiji acknowledges the role of carbon-rich mangroves in climate adaptation, preventing coastal erosion, addressing risk from coastal flooding and sea-level rise. Currently, Fiji is undertaking a community-based mangrove restoration and sustainable management project with support from ITTO. The project includes policy development, capacity building, establishing alternative species for mangrove-dependent communities, and educating them towards conservation of mangroves. The same project site is being used to conduct preliminary work on blue carbon with conservation international and is a first for Fiji in terms of blue carbon work. Finally, going towards Fiji has noted in its NBC that further accounting will need to take place to incorporate the mitigation potential for Fiji's forestry sector via the REDPLUS program. Once this is done, Fiji will look as to how REDPLUS will be incorporated into its NBC. At this point, I wish to acknowledge the financial, technical, scientific, capacity building and advisory support rendered towards the implementation of its global and national forest goals by various organizations, including World Bank, FCPF, Jeff, FAO, GIZ, Asia, UNFF, SPC, Conservation International, UNDP, WWF, ITTO, EU, to name a few. These organizations have been instrumental in supporting Fiji's drive national actions towards sustainable management, development, restoration and protection of forests in Fiji. As Minister of Forests, I also believe that there is an important link between the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the global sustainable development goals and protecting our rainforest as all-inspirable in Fiji at a sub-national level. The Ministry Plan aligned to Fiji's 20-year National Development Plan, the SDG goals and the UNFF Strategic Goals. The Forest Sector Strategic Development Plan prioritizes a sustainable forest management framework, encompassing outputs addressing SDGs 1, 2, 5, 7, 13, 14 and 15. One of the goals of the Ministry's Strategic Development Plan is to contribute positively to the global environment. This will address environmental-related SDGs, along with commitments embedded in the Convention on Biodiversity, the United Nations Forum on Forest, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, all of which Fiji is party to. The activities implemented to deliver SDP outputs and outcomes, including off-road stations and rip forest stations, to enhance carbon stocks, protect and restore catchments, conserve biodiversity, establish wood and non-wood plantations, including biofuel and food security species, coastal and mangrove restoration. Most of this rip forestation includes community participation on community-owned land with the government-empowering communities, women and youth, and providing financial and development incentives for their efforts. We recognize that mangroves can play a significant role in conserving and enhancing carbon sinks, enabling adaptation to climate change, and achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals 5, 13, 14 and 15. This integration of the Paris Agreement Goals and the SDGs is seen by Fiji as a critical to protecting forests and people, supporting economic growth. It will require the ongoing development of policies, plans and frameworks to achieve this. As Fiji reaffirms its commitments towards the global agenda under the SDGs and Paris Agreement, it will continue to protect forests and people, supporting economic growth and addressing rainforest conservation. Finally, I now wish to turn to the issues of finance. The key role to our efforts to protect forests is the need for innovative finance mechanisms to protect all kinds of forests, again including land-based forests, mangroves and sea grasses, while negotiations on forests have been among the most constructive strands of negotiation over the last 10 years, producing a detailed rulebook on red plus, the fact remains that the rule provides no actual formal mechanism within red plus for financing forests. Red plus has struggled because the lack of a carbon market has left it dependent on voluntary action and without the certainty needed to attract private funding. Additionally, the mechanism being pursued by Norway and the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility are excellent measures to develop red plus, but we now need long-term public and private sector finance flows to ensure that finance will flow into actual forest. In this regard, I note that while many governments have implemented measures to protect forests through establishing protected areas, this is not sufficient to avoid their destruction. Furthermore, despite the natural wear of forest, they do not offer a financial return on investing in their conservation, protection and management that can compete with a more destructive use. There are no well-established markets for forest carbon or the broader benefits they provide despite bringing critical to our very survival. Forest have therefore been unable to attract private sector finance at any scale. The hard-core reality is that protecting forest at any scale requires capital, significant expenditure like any green infrastructure project. Between 2006 and 2014, a total of U.S. $9.8 billion was invested into forest. Almost 90 percent of which came from the public sector. However, it is estimated that somewhere between U.S. $17 billion to $33 billion is required per year to halve deep forestation by 2030. Given the limits on public climate finance, substantial financial support must come from firstly larger pools of capital available only from the private sector. Fiji has taken leadership in this regard by launching our own sovereign green bond which will raise $100 million, which was listed on the London Stock Exchange last week. The proceeds of which will go towards climate mitigation and adaptation projects, including possibly in the Red Plus and Reforestation area. Going forward, we are hopeful that the rules being negotiated for the implementation of the Paris Agreement smooth away for further international cooperation on Red Plus and in particular innovative financing approaches under Article 6. All countries, but especially forest countries, enhance the profile of forest in the NDCs, commensurate with the mitigation potential and potential to contribute to other SDGs. Games such as the GCF Resolve-based Payments for Red Plus are implemented. Developed countries and the private sector increase financing flows for forest, especially the promise of Resolve-based Red Plus Payments, commensurate with the mitigation potential. This includes working together to develop mechanisms that drive and attract investments, both public and private, into Red Plus in a way that values this forest for their nature-based solutions to climate change and assisting to adapt to climate change. And other countries work with Fiji to follow the lead we have taken with our green bond, to develop bonds tailored specifically towards protecting forest and landscape. We look forward to a successful Red Asia Pacific Rainforest Summit and wish you all a constructive and enjoyable three days in your participation and contributions towards the success of this summit. Winaka and thank you very much.