Dear Editor,
The Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) and the Minister for Forestry have expressed disappointment at the poor response from the forest industry to a timed series of reminders about documents to be submitted for 2008 licensing.
We do not know how many sawmills and other processors of forest products have failed to provide the documents, but the GFC has given data on the response from the medium- and large-scale loggers.
In January 2008, the GFC recorded 28 long-term large-scale Timber Sales Agreements (TSAs) and 5 medium-term medium-scale Wood Cutting Leases (WCLs).
Of the 28 TSAs, 9 had officially expired in December 2007, presumably those originally issued to citizens of Guyana in 1985. Only 2 of those 9 had submitted adequate documents as requests for renewal by January 2008. Leaving aside those older TSAs, there are now 24 active TSAs and WCLs.
All of these 24 concessions should have submitted annual operation plans with associated detailed tree counts (100 per cent inventories of commercial trees) for the areas to be harvested in the following year.
The concessionaires were reminded of this obligation in 2006, for the 2007 harvest year, they did not comply, and the GFC did not prevent continued logging.
They were reminded again in September 2007. Only 17 of the 24 concessions supplied their annual operation plans and only 5 of the 24 supplied inventory data.
But while 302 blocks of inventory data should have been submitted by these 5 loggers, only 144 blocks reached the GFC HQ, and 133 of these 144 came in January rather than before the end of the previous November.
Why did the major loggers, who have over 4.4 million of the 6.2 million hectares allocated for harvesting in State Forests, mostly ignore the GFC advice and instructions? Why also were these major operators allowed an extension until May 2008 for submission of the outstanding forest inventory data, meanwhile being allowed to continue logging even though they are still massively indebted to the GFC for taxes and penalties?
One reason may be that the GFC’s threats to curtail logging were not viewed as credible. After all, the GFC has been ignored by the major loggers with impunity for years until the penalties levied on Presidential instruction in late 2007. Why is the GFC viewed as not credible?
Inventory data on commercial trees in the following year’s harvest areas should be submitted by the end of November in the previous year. The GFC allows itself just one month to check and approve those data. As December is not a full working month for government agencies in Guyana, this is quite a self-imposed challenge.
Here is the calculation – 5 loggers should have submitted data on 302 blocks each of 100 hectares. If all 24 active concessions had submitted data in the same proportion, that would have meant (24 concessions x 302 blocks x 100 hectares / 5 concessions =) 144,960 hectares to be checked. From the pilot inventory exercise in 2000, the GFC indicates 2.5 per cent sample as a consistency check and a work rate of 10 hectares per day. 2.5 per cent of 145,000 hectares is 3624 hectares. So 20 crews working flat out for 18 days at 10 hectares per crew per day would be needed to make even this low percentage check for all the concessions. The GFC does not have such capacity, and the concession holders know this very well.
In chapter four of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice through the looking glass”, Tweedledum says to Alice,
“If you think we’re wax-works,
You ought to pay, you know.
Wax-works weren’t made to be looked at
for nothing. Nohow.”
And perhaps that is the problem in Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
Mahadeo Kowlessar
