Over the last two weeks, Guyana’s forests attracted much media attention not because of any scientific discovery or technological breakthrough, but because of the economics surrounding their use. The sustained attention was generated by suspicions of illegality, deception, and incompetence regarding the management, allocation, control, production and export of Guyana’s forest assets. These concerns were initially prompted by the apparent delinquent conduct of two foreign companies operating in the forestry sector in Guyana, but have garnered further attention from discrepancies in the data on production and export of timber presented by the government in its half-year report that was released on August 9 of this year. As further information about the confusion and incompetence of government’s handling of Guyana’s forest assets are revealed, the contentious data on the production and export of forest assets in the half year report takes on greater significance.
The companies, Bai Shan Lin, a foreign investor from China and Vaitarna Holdings Private Inc, a foreign investor from India,
