Member for Samarai-Murua Isi Henry Leonard officiated the groundbreaking ceremony for a new boat-building project at Galowa village near Bwagaoia Station on Misima Island in the Milne Bay province last Friday. He announced that the project would support the locals in promoting the district's coastal fisheries program. The boat-building initiative is part of a larger fishing project launched on the Island. Mr. Leonard confirmed that the first phase, including land identification at Galowa village, had been completed. “The landowners have all come to an agreement for the project to take place on their land and have started clearing the area by cleaning and preparing it for its availability. “The second phase of the boat building project would be to set up the basic infrastructure with funding to come from the District’s Fishing program Kekeisi Investment Limited and from the district services improvement programme (DSIP),” Mr. Leonard said. The funding would come after the district development authority (DDA) sat for its meeting in the coming months. “We will build our own fishing boats and give to fisherman across the district in all four local level governments (LLG) to assist with fishing. “The boat building is part of the greater coastal fisheries program that the district is now engaged into fish and export to international markets. It plays a very important role as we seriously go into the fishing business for the district,” he said. Mr. Leonard indicated that the timber species that would be used for boat building would the HOPIA tree, mostly found in Loani in Bwanabwana LLG and Sudest in Yaleamba LLG both in the Samarai Murua district according to the forest resource inventory. The hopia trees would be the most suitable material and timber used to develop the fishing boats for the fishermen in the district. Since the kekeisi-1 factory fishing vessel would mostly be doing its work outside the three nautical miles from the islands, the smaller fishing boats built in Galowa would be used by fishermen and villagers to use in their daily fishing activity. From these catches, they would sell to Kekeisi-1 and others for their daily consumption. Mr. Leonard commended the landowners and clan leaders from Galowa who partnered with the DDA to be part of this project in boat building. He also launched the Fishing program and the newly built Mama Bank office in Bwagaoia Station.