Forest Bill being sent to Select Committee

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Forest Bill being sent to Select Committee
Stabroek News,
Wednesday, September 19th 2007

Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud said that the volume of the
debate on the Forest Bill has prompted a decision to send it to a
Select Committee for further consideration, on the resumption of the
National Assembly some time next month.

He was speaking yesterday at a stakeholder forum for operators of
sawmills held at the main auditorium of the Guyana School of
Agriculture.

The minister tabled Forest Bill 2007 in the National Assembly just
before Parliament went into recess in August.

In the past weeks, there has been heavy criticism of the Bill in its
present form and forest researcher Janette Bulkan has been one of those
critics.

She has piloted a petition against the Bill as well. Persaud
acknowledged that the Bill was drafted in 1996 and since then there has
been consultation on it. But he said that given the present debate,
further consultation at the parliamentary level was necessary.

The Bill sets out the permitting regime for state forests in order to
provide for the sustainable management of state forests.

Under Part Two of the Bill, a state forest authorisation from the
Guyana Forestry Commission is needed in order to carry out activities
such as entering state forests, or taking forest produce or occupying
land in state forests, unless they are exercising a right, power, duty,
or privilege under any written law, or under Amerindian custom.

Part Two of the Bill also provides for five types of state forest
authorisations: concessions, exploratory permits, use permits,
community forest management agreements, and afforestation agreements.

Regulations will prescribe matters such as the form and content of
applications, qualifications, restrictions, criteria to be considered,
and conditions for each type of authorisation.

The Bill states that the commission can require a security bond to be
paid upon the grant or renewal of any state forest authorisation except
a community forest management agreement. Other provisions of Part Two
deal with features of state forest authorizations, joint holders of a
state forest authorizations, compliance with occupational safety and
health requirements, amendment, suspension, revocation, surrender, and
transfer of a state forest authorisation, and restrictions on changes
in the effective control of a holder; and removal of property brought
onto land under a state forest authorisation.

Part Three, sub-headed Forest Conservation, is aimed at protecting and
conserving forests. It provides for the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) to declare specially protected areas within state forests.

It also prohibits acts that could cause fires in state forests, allows
the commission to declare any area of state forest, and any area of
land within 1.6 kilometres of that area a fire protection area and
provides for controlled burning by forest officers.

Part Four, sub-headed Forest Operations and Activities Relating to
Forest Produce, regulates forest operations, other activities relating
to forest produce, and quality control of value-added forest produce.

It also provides for the minister to adopt legally binding codes of
practice that can be amended from time to time.

This part of the Bill bans the importation and conveyance of unlawfully
obtained or unlawfully exported forest produce, the under-pricing of
forest produce for export, the selling of timber as seasoned or graded
timber, except timber graded and marked in accordance with the
commission's guidelines, and certification of forest produce as
complying with any international standard for export from Guyana,
except by duly accredited persons.