Islands Business - Fiji faces low supply of cocowood

SUVA, Fiji --- Fiji had to refuse thousands of dollars of worth of coconut wood or cocowood flooring orders from Europe because of inability to supply,” says Sustainable Forest Industry production and marketing officer, Collin Marley. He made the comment in his presentation during the coconut wood seminar at the Holiday Inn yesterday. Mr Marley said companies are suffering because of the lack of supply of coconut wood to the high end market in Europe, New Zealand and Australia. “At the moment, there is no supply for cocowood,” he said. “There has been a couple of people who have tried working on supplying coconut wood at the initial product we use to get and that is for flooring but for the last five months, that supply has dried up.” Mr Marley said coconut farmers should be aware that cutting of senile coconut palms could be a viable business. “It can be done in a smaller landowning unit and sent to a central processing centre, so that individuals can work with their community, create employment and earn a bit of money. “They can later re - plant for agriculture, subdivide the land for residential purposes but get some value on the trees now because at the moment, they’re not getting any income. “We’ve got high quality market for flooring in Fiji. There are new resorts being built as well as residential market.”