Stop the exportation

Stop the exportation
Kaieteur News, 14 February 2007

Dear Editor,

The discussions that have been taking place in your column on the
forestry sector have been most interesting for several reasons.

In the first instant it is crazy for the government to continue the
exportation of logs. The reasons are not all too difficult to see. The
argument that Guyana would earn more money from value added products
such as dress materials, parquet floors, doors, furniture and so on.

The job creation that such activities would create is obvious.
Government should ban the exportation of logs because it would be
economical to do so. By this I mean that if logs export is banned then
we will be able to attract investment to do the value added here.

Everyone who has some idea about forestry will tell you that the forest
management in Guyana is very poor.

If the Forestry Commission is claiming otherwise then I wish to contend
that they do not visit the areas where logging takes place or they just
do not care.

A visit to Barama operations, particularly the operations on grants
that they have sub-leased, would show the major threats being posed to
our forests. This is true in many areas as well.

I have never heard any official of the Forestry Commission or a
government official speaking about re-forestation. There must be a
programme to replant the forest to allow our country to keep on earning
bigger bucks from forestry while preserving some of our natural forest.

Why does it appear that no one is thinking about this?

I am of the view that all stakeholders should-get together and map out
a proper strategy for our forest.

Edward Clarke