OAS meeting in Washington… Agri Minister to speak on forestry’s role in renewable energy

OAS meeting in Washington… Agri Minister to speak on forestry’s role in
renewable energy
Kaieteur News, 4 March 2008


Guyana’s Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud, is in Washington and
all set to address several high level ministers on renewable energy.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Persaud will be attending
two important ministerial forum convened by the Organization of
American States (OAS) and the United States Government in Washington,
DC, USA which among other things will be looking at hemispheric issues
concerning renewable energy sources, including bio-fuels/agro-energy.
Yesterday, an Inter-American Meeting of National Authorities and
Experts on Energy for Sustainable Development in the Americas was
scheduled to be held while from today until Friday there will be the
United States government forum – the Washington International Energy
Conference (WIREC).
The Minister will be speaking to the panel of the Ministerial Level
Concurrent Session on the theme, “The Role of Forestry in Renewable
Energy”.
Presentations will also be made by Ed Schafer, Secretary of
Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture; Kirk Kempthorne, Secretary
of the Interior of the United States; Pranab Kumar Murkherjee, Minister
of External Affairs, Republic of India; Samuel Bodman, Secretary of
Energy, US Department of Energy; John Negroponte, Deputy Secretary of
State, US Department of State and Paula Dobbriansky, Under Secretary of
State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Department of State of the US,
among others.
The OAS meeting follows the 37th regular session of the OAS General
Assembly, held in June 2007 in Pamama, where the Declaration of Panama,
“Energy for Sustainable Development”, was adopted. This document
requested that the Permanent Council and the Inter-American Council for
Integral Development (CIDI), with the Support of a Joint Working Group
of both councils, convene an Inter-American meeting of national
authorities and experts.
It is expected at the WIREC session that technology, policy,
cooperation, infrastructure, and changes and implications for
conventional forest products industry will also be presented from broad
perspectives.