Is it true that Guyana 's log harvesting procedures are among the best in the world?

Is it true that Guyana 's log harvesting procedures are among the best
in the world?
Kaieteur News, 19 November 2007
Dear Editor,

Before the Government and the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) become
too excited about recent nominal fines on serially-offending logging
concession holders, let me suggest a review of some facts:-

1. The GFC has had an obligation since its 1993 concessions policy to
audit loggers at not more than two-year intervals.

2. In relation to the conversion of some short-term (2-year) State
Forest Permissions which greatly exceeded the upper size limit of
20,000 acres into long-term concessions (TSAs), GFC reports from 2001
have recommended an increase in field monitoring while the conversion
assessments were in progress.

3. Instead, the Commissioner of Forests informed the public by way of
newspaper advertisements (SN, 27 March 2006) that he was reducing
monitoring at the Linden Forest Station from April 1, 2006.

4. Holders of large-scale/long-term concessions owed more than US$1.4
million in 2001 to the GFC and were neither penalized nor charged
interest on these debts (‘The Forestry Sector in Guyana' by Lachlan
Hunter. Guyana Forestry Commission, 2001; ‘Study on forest sector
financing in Guyana ' by Jyrki Salmi and Kelvin Craig. UNDP and GFC,
2001).

5. Improperly declared exports of fine timber logs to Asia were
probably earning US$3-5 million per month in 2006.

6. Barama has one legally-awarded concession of 1.61 million hectares,
ran its plymill at 25 percent capacity and its sawmills at 7-8 percent
capacity in 2005/6, receives tax concessions from the Government of
Guyana worth US$800,000 per year to aid in-country milling, but
exported at least 119,000 cubic metres of fine furniture logs (Samling
Global Ltd., Initial Public Offering 2007) worth about US$60 million
CIF China in the same period.

7. Barama has recently been fined US$470,000 for a variety of forest
crimes. In terms of national accounting, this is just over half of the
annual tax concessions given to Barama. In other words, Barama
continues to win, and Guyana to lose.

8. The GFC is said to have used the “compounding of forest offences”
procedure (Section 29 of the Forests Act 1953) but this requires an
admission of guilt by the offender, which Barama continues to deny. The
GFC is either technically incapable of marshalling a court case during
which forest criminals can be exposed through cross-examination, or it
is using illegal or undocumented procedures to cut under-the-table
deals with forest criminals (SN, Friday, October 26th, 2007. The Guyana
Forestry Commission should take major offenders to court.

9. The President, as Minister of Forestry, has claimed that Guyana's
log harvesting procedures are among the best in the world (‘Guyana's
log harvesting procedures among best in the world — Jagdeo — deploying
forests does not mean transferring ownership', Kaieteur News, 17
October 2007).

10. However, the ITTO's Status of Tropical Management 2005 Report
stated for Guyana that “the national forest policy 1997 is widely
accepted as a sound guide for the forest sector but is yet to be fully
implemented” (The regulation of our forests may not be as effective as
the Commissioner thinks. SN, Thursday, November 23rd 2006.

One of GFC's consultants repeated the point in October 2007 that rules
need to be implemented to be effective.

This reflects the business opinion reported in SN (Businessmen join
Granger-Luncheon security debate. Media blamed for not ‘tracking'
security issues. SN, Friday, November 16th 2007.

And the President will offer the forests of Guyana for mitigation of
climate change at CoP 13 of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change in Bali (UNFCCC)? With this record of national forest
management, who would accept such an offer?

Mahadeo Kowlessar