24 small loggers trained at Maria Elizabeth

-to be recommended to concession owners

Twenty-four members of the Small Loggers Association of Maria Elizabeth/Three Friends Mines, recently completed two weeks of intense training in forest management and wood utilization.

The programme was facilitated by the Guyana Forestry Commission Training Centre with funding from the Basic Needs Trust Fund, the Caribbean Development Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency and the Government of Guyana. The members are expected to use their new-found skills to maximise income generation for the community.

Director of the FTC Godfrey Marshall told this newspaper that the Forestry Commission took a decision to train residents based on recommendations from concession owners. He said they had complained that they were reluctant to train persons as they would often resign from the job soon after. “With this training now the owners of these concessions would come into these communities and recruit trained person[s] and we would also provide them [with] a list of persons who have been trained in the various areas …[so] both ends of the table are benefiting,” he said.

The programme sought to reduce the impact of logging in Guyana by using fewer trees through the process of timber drying and storage of timber for manufacturing furniture. A noted spin-off benefit is that a joinery in the area that had not been functioning due to the lack of skilled personnel will now be made operational for commercial purposes.

All the participants in the training programme were given certificates and stipends. The FTC also donated a quantity of equipment to the Association including chain saws and accessories, GPS devices, compasses, clinometers, among others.