Dear Editor,
Kaieteur News reports Commissioner James Singh of the Guyana Forestry Commission as saying that “there was much more scope for increased production and productivity” (KN, ‘Harvest more logs – Commissioner Singh’, February 3). On his reckoning, Guyana could be producing 1.2 million m3 of logs each year. The Edinburgh Centre for Tropical Forestry established long-term yield plots for Barama in the 1990s (now sadly abandoned, lost or re-logged) from which an average sustainable output of 20 m3/ha every 60 years was estimated although Barama itself was taking only 8 m3/ha in that period. In practice, because of the highly selective logging which the GFC allows, much more than 60,000 ha of forest (1.2 million/20 = 60,000) are harvested each year across Guyana, with all the related damage and lost carbon production caused by failure to make mandatory reduced-impact logging and obligatory harvesting of technically proven species.
Concern about this waste caused Norway to include a penalty limit in its Joint Concept Note with Guyana in 2009. If in any one year the total log production (including posts, poles and chainsawn lumber) exceeds the average from the years 2003-2008, the excess “will be counted as increased forest carbon emissions” and Guyana will be penalized financially. During the five years 2003-8, that average production was 481,000 m3/year.
During the subsequent three years, the annual production was 468,000, 532,000 and 500,000 m3. An increase to 1.2 million m3, that is, an excess of 720,000 m3 would incur a penalty of US$ 6.6 million at Norway’s rate of US$ 5 per tonne of forest carbon. Is this amount likely to change behaviour? Increased production per hectare will involve harvesting a wider range of species, less desirable commercially although still technically adequate for most purposes if marketed professionally. Even at a modest export price of US$ 100/m3 for less desirable timbers, that production would raise US$ 72 million, against which the Norwegian penalty is derisory.
What about the GFC claim that “We have had many international audits done here and the auditors have verified that we have the mechanisms and that these mechanisms are working.” That is not an accurate statement. Barama lost its FSC certificate in less than a year (in early 2007) for failing on a range of simple tests, including not having a management plan for its whole area. Barama and Variety Woods now hold Certificates of Legal Origin, but that says nothing about the quality of the forest management, or about the legality of production of purchased logs. The Efeca report of May 2011 showed that the legality verification scheme for Guyana was so inadequate that a complete alternative was proposed.
The GFA Consulting scoping study on independent forest monitoring, published in December 2011, showed that the GFC scheme would not meet the expectations of the European Union for a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA). The December 2012 report from Rainforest Alliance was notably critical about forest governance.
So who would benefit most from increased log production? It is no surprise that the India-based Café Coffee Day (VHPI) and the China-based Bai Shan Lin would be major beneficiaries. Both these companies have promised major investments, which have not (yet) materialized; see for example ‘Two years on … Indian logging firm still to build processing plant,’ (SN, January 3, 2013; ‘Chinese firm plans US$100M investment here,’ GC, February 9, 2007). Yet these two companies have received substantial logging concessions. The GFC should not focus on more logging but on helping to secure greater in-Guyana benefits from what is logged now. That would include more real support for in-Guyana value-added processing, which has been national policy since at least 1997 and means more jobs, more skills, more tax paid, and more income for Guyanese. While the GFC has informed the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) that it has slightly increased the log export commission rates in Guyana, the GFC has not bothered to inform Guyanese by updating its own website (as at February 3).
So could the Commissioner of the GFC and the Minister for Natural Resources and Environment focus on sustainable management in and improving benefits for Guyana and less on benefits for China and India?
Yours faithfully,
Janette Bulkan
