Dear Editor,
We need to protect our forest industry and the production of wallaba poles.
I read in your paper where the CEO of GPL is threatening to substitute steel and concrete poles for wallaba, because of poor delivery and price.
For those who do not know, wallaba poles are hand-made and not machine manufactured, plus from the felling of the tree to delivery of the product there must be careful handling in order to maintain quality and specification. We have lost markets in the Caribbean to concrete and steel and we must not suffer the same fate here; the management of GPL must try as much as possible to accommodate the producers, while producers on the other hand must step up their production despite their known difficulties of labour, infrastructure and finance.
Yours faithfully
Hilbertus Cort
