The information in Kowlessar’s table is totally incorrect

May 23, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
I refer to the fiction written by Mahadeo Kowlesar in Friday’s edition of SN (2009-5-15).
This individual chooses to totally misrepresent the statements made by the Hon. Minister of Agriculture, and as usual distort the real facts to suit his own agenda.
In the first instance, if Kowlessar was indeed a patriot as he tries to portray himself, instead of peddling his misinformation publicly, he would have done the decent thing and sought clarification from either the Minister or Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC).

In my previous letters to the press, I have made it abundantly clear that more needs to be done to improve the contribution of forestry to national GDP and socio-economic development.
I have also emphasised, however, that it is a fact that Guyana is rated internationally as one of the few countries in the world that has an abundance of tropical forest resources, but is actually pursuing a policy that ensures that use of these resources is done in keeping with environmental best practices.
How else can Kowlessar account for the fact that the global community is all ears to find out more about Guyana’s Avoided Deforestation initiative?

If Kowlessar was abreast with world events as he tries to portray, then how does his condemnation of the GFC and Government compare with the fact that the President was requested only this week to address an august body as the UN Commission on Sustainable Development?
Is Kowlessar not aware that the organisers of this event as well as the many other international events that the President has been invited to speak at will, do a due diligence to ensure that Guyana is actually doing sustainable forest management before offering these invitations?

But the fact of the matter is that Kowlessar and his minority supporters seek every opportunity to pursue their disturbing agenda; an agenda which seeks to undermine every effort that the President, the Minister and the GFC make to obtain justified incentives for practicing decades of sustainable forest management which has left our standing forests intact.
If Kowlessar was really in touch with reality, he would observe that only this week, the FPA issued a public statement which in essence complained that the GFC was enforcing too rigid guidelines on the sector, guidelines which were difficult for concessionaires to meet. This also is ample testimony to debunk the nonsense of Kowlessar.

His arguments re the UNAMCO matter are baseless. In contacting the GFC, I was advised that UNAMCO had made a request for a renewal but that this renewal request had to be evaluated very carefully since even though UNAMCO was advised to prepare and implement realistic plans of action years before the concession expired, nothing happened.

Expansive plans were prepared and submitted, but as the Minister mentioned, the situation only worsened. I was further informed that Government was also looking at the areas held by the sister company Case Timbers Limited since these areas were also being held unproductively.
However, UNAMCO’s request for renewal was also being considered in the context of the positive things that UNAMCO did such as road building and infrastructure development, employment for Region 10 and elsewhere etc. It is therefore unreasonable to expect that this would have been a decision that would have been made in a very short time by the Government.

Contrary to what Kowlessar tries to portray, the GFC advised that there were also several meetings between the Government and UNAMCO after expiration of the lease, and only recently an offer was made to UNAMCO by the Government. UNAMCO’s response is being awaited.
Contrary to what Kowlessar states also, the GFC has clear criteria for concession renewal; these were communicated to the sector, inclusive of UNAMCO.
The information in Kowlessar’s table is alarming since it is totally incorrect, according to the GFC.
I have also had this confirmed by senior officials of every company listed in the Table.
In today’s environment, companies have to show that their products come from sustainably managed sources and that they are confirming to national laws.
This damaging public misinformation will be accessed globally via the internet and can have severe negative implications for the companies.

I contacted the GFC and was advised as follows:
A few years ago, when GFC began to enforce the requirements for forest inventories and annual plans/forest management plans to be prepared and implemented, the locally owned companies requested that they be allowed to contract the services of the foreign owned companies.
The justification was that at that time, the foreign companies had the required management and planning skills to carry out the activities required by the GFC; they did not possess these skills and therefore they would have been unable to provide the information requested by GFC.
Additionally, these foreign owned companies had the appropriate equipment to harvest; something which the local companies also lacked.

The GFC Board approved this arrangement within very clear guidelines that were in accordance with the legislation. The Board however made it explicit that this arrangement was time bound and that the local companies had to quickly improve their own in house skills and also their cash flow situation. It was also made clear that the local companies were expected to commence the acquisition of their own machinery and equipment.
In 2007, the GFC terminated all contractual arrangements and every company had the responsibility of managing their own concessions with their own staff and equipment.

Why didn’t Kowlessar do like me and seek this clarification from the GFC? What really is his motive?
It is also nonsense that over harvesting was allowed during the contractual arrangements. The GFC procedures of annual allowable areas and annual allowable quotas, in accordance with approved felling cycles were followed. GFC public statements indicated that there were some minor breaches in 2007/2008 but these occurred when companies harvested in areas prior to obtaining the formal approval from GFC (GFC had not yet completed all of the required verification of the company’s 100 % pre-harvest inventory). As GFC pointed out many times in the press, these were breaches of procedure and not breaches in terms of damage to the environment.

One area that I agree with Kowlessar is in the recommended use of the portable mills to improve efficiency, recovery and quality. And this is exactly what the Minister is proposing – reallocate a portion of the expired UNAMCO concession to the Community Forest Organisations.
It is quite true that these communities are currently holding areas that have been logged for several years, but it is a credit to the Government that it was able to make areas available to these groups to directly improve the socio-economic welfare of same.
If I remember correctly, I think the Minster quoted some time ago that Community Forestry Organizations collected revenues in excess of US$4M in 2006
To sustain this economic growth, the communities will have to be given state forest permission to accommodate the relatively large numbers of members.

Kowlessar is out of tune with the principles of SFM and does not understand that the principle of a felling cycle will mean that every year; there will be a fixed annual allowable area. How is he going to satisfy the logistics of several members from several community groups, each looking to market the species that they are interested in, and all working within a finite location that is defined by the felling cycle?
Mr. Kowlessar, only an SFP arrangement where the quota is GFC regulated, and the code of practice with log tagging etc is implemented will allow for this to be successful. In this arrangement, each Community Forestry Organisation will be allocated specific State Forest Permission to accommodate the size of membership.

On the aspect of training, Mr. Kowlessar may not be aware that the GFC in collaboration with ITTO established the Forestry Training Centre (FTC) which has trained in excess of 700 persons since 2003 in Reduced Impact Logging. Only recently, the FTC completed a range of training for communities, and several training manuals were also prepared.
If Kowlessar was knowledgeable about the way the annual cut is calculated he would be aware that about 6 million hectares have been allocated as concessions.
If we assume that 50 % of this is productive, this translates to 3 million hectares.
On a 25-year cycle, the annual allowable cut is 8.33 m3/ha.
Lalita Stevenson