Submissions

Author Guidelines

Scope and Manuscript Categories for the Papua New Guinea Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

Welcome to the Papua New Guinea Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. We encourage contributors to follow these guidelines to prepare and submit manuscripts. Adherence to the guidelines will help to ensure a smooth reviewing and publication process.

Scope of the Journal

The PNG Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is a free, online, open-access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing biophysical and socioeconomic research and innovation across the renewable resources sector. The Journal publishes papers from tropical regions, with special attention to the diverse agro-ecological zones of Papua New Guinea and the wider Pacific.

Contributed papers should contribute to improved understanding and practical innovation in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, climate resilience, biodiversity, food security, natural resource management, and rural development.

We encourage contributions that highlight: adaptive strategies to environmental and economic change; integrated and sustainable resource management; locally grounded, culturally appropriate solutions; and research that bridges science, policy, and practice.

Manuscript Categories

The Journal accepts the following types of manuscripts:

Original Research Articles: Full papers presenting new research findings, experimental results, applied research, socio-economic studies, or innovations relevant to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, climate adaptation, food security, and natural resources.

Review Articles: Critical and comprehensive reviews of existing literature, technologies, or methodological advances.

Short Communications / Research Notes: Time critical, concise reports of important preliminary findings, emerging technologies, field trials, diagnostic notes, or rapid assessments.

Ethical Standards, Plagiarism and Use of AI

The PNG Journal of Agriculture upholds high editorial and scientific integrity standards.

Plagiarism: All submissions undergo plagiarism screening. Manuscripts showing unattributed copying, excessive similarity, or duplicated publication will be rejected.

Use of AI Tools:

Authors must declare any use of AI (e.g., for text drafting, editing, data analysis, or image generation). AI tools must not be listed as authors. Authors are fully responsible for ensuring accuracy, originality, and proper citation of all content.

Ethical Research Compliance: Studies involving human participants, animals, biosafety risks or sensitive data must follow relevant ethical standards, and declarations must be included in the manuscript.

Review Process

All manuscripts undergo an initial editorial screening for suitability, originality, AI declaration, and compliance with journal format. Submissions that pass screening are sent for independent peer review. Decisions (accept, revise, or reject) are based on scientific merit, relevance, methodological soundness, and contribution to PNG's knowledge base. Revised manuscripts must address reviewers' comments clearly and transparently.

Open Access and Licencing

The Journal is free to publish and free to read. All articles will be published online under an open-access licence to promote broad dissemination, reuse for training, extension, policy, and international research visibility.

Thematic Coverage

While the primary focus is Papua New Guinea, the Journal welcomes manuscripts relevant to the wider Pacific region, particularly those addressing shared challenges such as climate resilience, food security, value chains, conservation, and community-based natural resource management.

Submission Guidelines

A Word template is provided here for authors to use to ensure compliance with the Journal’s style.

Manuscript Preparation

General Requirements

Manuscripts must be written in UK-English or Aust-English. Submit as a MS Word or LibreOffice Writer document. Include continuous line numbers. Follow this order: title page and author information, abstract, keywords, body text (e.g. Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, tables, figure captions, figures), author statements, references, supplementary material. Images (photos, figures etc.) can be included in the body of the text initially but high quality, separate files will be required when submitting revised manuscripts.

Length of paper

The length of the paper should not exceed 25 pages. Authors are encouraged to write as concisely as possible, but not at the expense of clarity.

Title Page

The title page is a separate page before the main text. It should include the following information:

Title: This should be concise, informative and include keywords. Avoid abbreviations

Authors’ names and contacts: Clearly indicate the given name and family name of authors and contact addresses (where the actual work was done). Provide contact details of each author including e-mail address

Orcid numbers are to be provided for each author (see https://info.orcid.org/what-is-orcid/)

Corresponding Author: Clearly indicate the author of contact for correspondence during the processing of the papers. Nominating an alternate in the event of the absence of the lead author is useful.

Abstract
Must be clear, direct, and concise with a length of 150 - 300 words. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the study, material and methods, results/outcome and conclusions. The abstract should include keywords but should not include references, figures or tables. You may use subheadings.

Keywords
Provide 6 - 8 keywords. Avoiding general and plural terms, and multiple concepts.

Table and Figures

Reference all Tables and Figures in the text (Figure 1, Table 1, etc.) Provide a caption for each Table and Figure. Indicate the source, where required. Tables and figures should be self sufficient with all necessary details provided in footnotes.

Units

SI units are required.

References
Use APA citation style (www.apastyle.org). Ensure every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Avoid citation in the abstract. Unpublished results and personal communications should not be in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication. References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters "a", "b", "c", etc., placed after the year of publication.

Examples:

Reference to a Journal Publication:

Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton R. A. (2000). The art of writing a scientific article. Journal of Scientific Communications, 163, 51-59.

Reference to a Book:

Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (1979). The elements of style. (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan, (Chapter 4).

Reference to a Chapter in an Edited Book:

Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (1994). How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281-304). New York: E-Publishing Inc.

Reference to a Web Source:

Smith, Joe, (1999), One of Volvo's core values. [Online] Available: http://www.volvo.com/environment/paper.htm (Accessed 15 June 2002)

Authorship

Co-authors should be individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the conception and design of study, data analysis, and interpretation of data; and drafting the article or revising it critically. Co-authors should be given the opportunity to review manuscripts before submission.