 Honorable Dato Seriz Setia Avanghaji Alibin Apong, Minister for Primary Resources and Tourism, Honorable Ministers and Excellencies of the AC Pacific countries, Distinguished Gaste, Media, Ladies and Gentlemen. I join others who have preceded me on behalf of the Solomon Islands government in congratulating the government and people of Brunei Darussalam for the excellent arrangements in hosting the second AC Pacific Rainforest Summit. I would also like to thank the government of Brunei Darussalam and Australia for inviting Solomon Islands to attend this very important summit. I also want to acknowledge the support of Australian government and SIFO on this summit. Against that backdrop, I would like to acknowledge what a significant moment this is. We have come to Brunei Darussalam to present, share, and discuss our resolve. Nearly 10 nations have assembled here this week, and I hope we have learned from each other. But this also shows a declaration that we all have challenges and resolution to share on sustainable management of the rainforest in many different ways, governed by national needs, driven by economic, environment, and social factors. Thank you to the daily facilitators or panels for sharing your knowledge, experiences, and a way forward. For Solomon Islands, we have learned from these presentations and discussions, and we now can navigate our way forward. While Solomon Islands economy depends very much on the forest products in the past, now, and will be into the future, we are determined to make a strong contribution to the international effort in conserving the high-value forests and rehabilitating the production and degraded rainforests. Communities and individuals are encouraged through international subsidies to plant trees, purposely to ensure future woodflow, and to relieve pressure from the islands and forest. That's why we have established our native forest development plan, established the Red Plus Roadmap, and endorsed by the government of Solomon Islands, and we showed our commitment by signing of the Paris Agreement last May. Under this initiative, we have decided to review and align all our policies, regulations, and safeguards that have provisions for the management and utilization of the natural forest, and that will promote reef-to-reach management, production, and conservation. Under this arrangement, Solomon Islands undertake to reduce the degradation and deforestation of the natural forest through promotion of regeneration and enrichment programs in the production forest and conserve high conservation-value forests to ensure speedy recovery of our island natural forests over time. By conserving and rehabilitating the rainforest, simultaneously it ensures future woodflow, ecosystem services, and biodiversity abundance. Carbon sequestration is encouraged, and therefore we progressively contribute to the international fight to control the increase of carbon and greenhouse gas, claim to increase temperature, which endangers and threaten lives on earth. However, Solomon Islands faces unique domestic challenges in conserving potential production areas and reducing forest production areas to meet the red plus requirements for carbon sink by diversity and reducing degradations and carbon emissions. Almost 60% of our revenue is generated from the harvesting of the rainforest of forest products, and almost half of our emissions are from forestry and agriculture sectors and related activities, where there are not yet cost-effective ways of reducing emissions. However, we are currently working hard to change that. Early this year, we raised our ambitions. We launched the National Development Strategy 2016 to 2035. The agriculture and rural development strategy was also established. The current government is prioritizing establishing new policies that enables best forest and land use practices, promoting downstream processing and adding value, rehabilitation of the secondary forest and reforestation. Currently, the Environmental Act, Forestry Act, Mineral Act, Tourism Act, and Fisheries Act are reviewed. This showed how ambitious we are in developing other industries to fill in the gap the forestry industry will create when sustainable forest management is executed for the increase of forest conservation, to ensure biodiversity and carbon stock on the Red Plus. We are currently reviewing all other acts and industries with a view to strengthening their provisions and aligning them to deliver further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Next year, in 2017, we will begin a three to four years National Forest Inventory to enable us to know our forests better for planning purposes. Solomon Islands have allocated several blocks of forests for conservation, including one of the biggest uninhabited island in the South Pacific called Tete Pari Island. More forest areas currently conserved are going to be officially declared as protected forests for biodiversity management and ecotourism. Large forest protected areas are critical to allow terrestrial biodiversity to live and recover, which has great spillover benefits for the region and the world. Helping island rainforest to maintain the critical ecological functions and as an effective carbon sink. We have done so in spite of the fact that we contribute less to climate change and in spite of our limited capacities to withstand its destructive effects. We cannot and we will not assume more obligations. Doing so will dent our development aspirations and in particular our efforts to eradicate poverty. We on our part commit ourselves to meeting our obligations when we express our expectations on such as mitigation and adaptation, loss and damage, provision of long-term financial resources, technology development and transport and capacity building we do as partners. This second Asia Pacific rainforest summit offers an unprecedented opportunity to once again make commitment to take heed of scientific findings about anthropogenic changes to climate and act collectively to accelerate the overall effort to combat climate change through mitigation and adaptation through sustainable management of the rainforest and rehabilitation where natural recovery process failed. Finally, as time is not on our side, we act resolutely. It is my hope that prudent actions will help us lay the foundations for sustainable management of our rainforest and ensure climate resilient future in the Asia Pacific region as our survival on this planet also depends on the protection of our rainforest and the environment. I thank you for your kind attention.