A very small number of species of timber make up the bulk of exports

http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article?id=56521370

A very small number of species of timber make up the bulk of exports
Stabroek News
Thursday, May 31st 2007

Dear Editor,

I wish to comment on a press report in the Guyana Chronicle of May 29,
2007 (Over-exploitation of forests a myth - Minister Persaud), in which
Minister Robert Persaud is quoted as saying at his meeting with Region
6 forestry stakeholders on 28 May: "So this notion that we are
over-foresting, over-exploiting and chopping down logs while the Guyana
Forestry Commission and nobody is doing anything is just a myth because
the records are there for us to see."

This repeats the Minister's assertion which was also published in the
Guyana Chronicle on December 9, 2006.

Every logger knows that you cannot speak of trees in the aggregate. If
a logger or tree spotter did not have to search among the over 1,000
species in the Guyana forest for what they call 'merchantable' species,
then there would certainly be no over-harvesting at current rates of
harvesting of much less than 20 cubic metres per hectare.

In the case of Guyana, however, the records show that a very small
number of species make up the large proportion of trees cut and
exported. Purpleheart, for example, is estimated to make up 1 percent
of the standing stock of Guyana's forests. Yet this one species
comprises 30 percent of annual exports by log volume.

It is on account of this selective over-harvesting of a few commercial
or 'merchantable' species that the GFC's Code of Practice for Timber
Harvesting (2nd Edition, November 2002) stipulates the following:

"Sustained yields can only be ensured if a minimum stocking is retained
after logging for each individual desirable species [emphasis in
original]. GFC recently developed growth and yield models that can
assist in determining the number of trees that can be felled per ha as
well as the minimum size (diameter) for each individual species. This
means that individual tree-marking rules need to be developed for each
particular forest type under different stand conditions" (p. 8).

Minister Persaud's assertions also beg the question: if logging is
being done sustainably in Guyana, why then is the Barama Company not
able to source all the trees it cuts and exports from its own 1.6
million hectare concession? Why is the Barama Company illegally logging
in an additional 408,000 hectares of public forests ostensibly held by
other forest concessionaires and titled Amerindian communities?

The Minister refers to the very long-delayed GFC Bill and Act being
taken to Parliament in the upcoming months. I do hope that the draft
Forests Act will be thoroughly revised to close loopholes against
illegal and unsustainable logging and against speculative trading in
harvesting concessions over the national forest patrimony.

Yours faithfully,

Janette Bulkan