Dear Editor,
I refer to a letter captioned “Illegal logging is lower in Guyana than in many other countries” (07.01.15) by Paul Taylor.
By writing this letter Mr Taylor indicated that he would like to join in the ongoing debate regarding what has been happening in the timber industry in the recent past. I would like to advise Mr Taylor to firstly get a good grasp of what was being debated and not jump wildly into letter writing for the sake of it. No one was debating illegal logging as such but the arguments were based mainly on Asian companies operating in the timber industry and violating numerous policies set out by the GFC. They are plundering Guyana’s forestry resources for little or no gain to Guyana. The GFC in turn was doing nothing regarding these illegal acts by the Asians.
Due to the immense pressure that was put on the GFC during the past few months they have now closed Jaling’s operations. If the issues had not been highlighted this would not have happened. Jaling would have continued on their merry way exporting logs and importing more labour into Guyana and persons like Mr Taylor would have sat back and be thinking that we only have 5% illegal logging in Guyana, so all’s well.
Mr Taylor mentioned Barama, they have been in the industry for many, many years and have no doubt contributed significantly to Guyana’s economy – does this now give Barama the right to do whatever they want in the sector, i.e. engage in mass log exports and move away from producing plywood and sawn-timber? Who benefits when this happens?
Mr Taylor also mentioned that illegal logging in Guyana is less than 5% and more exporters of timber and value-added products buy a small quantity of legitimate timber (for example from Barama) and the majority from illegal sources to suffice their operations and they declare all stock as legal. How many processors can actually use this less than 5% illegal timber that he is referring to? Does he think that this less than 5% illegal timber is adequate to sustain an export operation? He mentioned that “
