The France Government through the European Union (EU) is supporting the efforts to protecting and conserving the world’s environment, which was the reason behind the France backing of the Managalas Conservation Project in the Northern Province. Speaking during the presentation of the Managalas Conservation project, France President Emmanuel Macron, emphasized on the importance of protecting the environment, particularly the tropical rain forests, which Papua New Guinea (PNG) is classified as having the third largest in the world. In order to protect and conserve the forests, President Macron said that there must be newer strategies in place to ensure that efforts to mitigate climate change, protect biodiversity, and development are done in a manner that does not deprive the people of the benefits from all these three elements. “That is why we built few weeks ago in Paris the Paris Pact for People and Planet,” the president announced. “We are creating a new consensus to make this story possible, and one of the key elements of this strategy is about forests. It’s for a very simple reason, forest is one of the solutions for carbon capture because rainforests are one of the huge places of carbon storage,” said the president. Secondly, he said forests are rich in biodiversity and 90% of the ecosystem in the world, and forests are where indigenous people live. It is for these reasons that he said the Managalas Conservation project is the right direction the local people are taking to protect their way of life for their future generation. “The Managalas project is a platform which will protect your forest, which will allow you to transform your economy by having a sustainable use of your forest in creating more values,” President Macron further stated. “We will mobilize our money and we will be part of it through Expertise France, we will have as well bilateral funding, we have a lot of philanthropist joining the club and the objective is to finalize a country strategy by end of this year, based on your experience because you’ve lived in this forest for centuries, millennia.” Meanwhile, Prime Minister James Marape in his closing remarks at the end of bilateral talks on Friday with the France President, said that this support is a reflection of France and EU commitment to protecting biodiversity in the country. The conservation project gets its main support from the EU and the EU has pledged K100million to support the project. President Macron was thanked for the support as well because France happens to be the biggest contributor to the EU and the projects and programs it runs and supports.