By Janette Bulkan and John Palmer
Why is it important to know about the Bai Shan
Lin forest empire?
Because the President, Ministers and the Guyana Forestry Commission have given almost unqualified statements of support for this Chinese transnational logger without apparently caring about the non-compliances with laws and regulations and without being bothered by the non-conformities with national policies. As the Secretary of the Rockstone Loggers Association was quoted, ‘if the big ones are not adhering to (the laws), then why should the small ones adhere to (them)?’ (Guyana Chronicle, ‘The Bai Shan Lin affair’, 18 August 2014). The extravagant promises of inward investment, of creating new factories and adding value to forest products have yet to materialise during the eight years since 2006, while intrinsically high-value timbers are being shipped by Bai Shan Lin as raw unprocessed logs to its associated factories in China in ever increasing quantities. Civil society in Guyana is entitled to know how laws, regulations and national policies are being ignored or side-stepped at high levels in government. This analysis is based on GFC figures and documents except where explicitly stated otherwise
What the GFC stated on 18 August 2014
The Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) and the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MNRE) have different histories of which Guyanese-held forest concessions in State Forests have been sold to or have joint ventures with Chinese transnational logger Bai Shan Lin (BSL), and when they were sold or transferred. The GFC itself started with a small number at the beginning of August 2014 and has gradually revealed more and more concessions under the operational control of Bai Shan Lin. The box below summarises how the GFC Commissioner explained the forest holdings of Bai Shan Lin at the GFC Press conference on 18 August 2014,
