Misapprehensions and extraordinary statements

Jul 18, 2009 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
Some observations on the reports in all three daily newspapers on July 14, 2009, about the presentations to the Forest Products Association by a government team on the President’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
The Commissioner of the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) is reported in Stabroek News to have noted that “50 per cent of state forests are unallocated and being held in abeyance pending the Copenhagen summit” (Stabroek News, Tuesday 14 July 2009 – “Benefits to forestry sector among issues raised at low carbon consultation”).

The GFC’s Forest Sector Information Report for calendar year 2008 (on the GFC website) shows that 59 per cent of the State Forests are already allocated. Of the remaining 41 per cent (5.6 million hectares (Mha)), the GFC in the calendar year 2006 report (section 2.0) noted that “factoring in future national development initiatives such as interior road networks and expansion of Amerindian lands, together with unsuitable areas (forest degradation, secondary/recovering forests, etc), GFC estimates indicate availability of only just over half the current unallocated hectares”.
The Commissioner is reported to have continued that if the plan [LCDS] is not realized at the Copenhagen conference “then the forests will be open up for utilization under sustainable forest management guidelines”.

But this should happen only after the GFC has completed and published its strategic allocation plan, which is required under the National Forest Policy 1997, repeated in the National Forest Plan 2001, and still missing. Moreover, forests for sustainable management should be opened for public auction of resource access rights, starting with a State Forest Exploratory Permit (SFEP) according to the forest law as amended in 1996.
However, the GFC has allocated recently at least one SFEP without a public auction, covering forest already logged illegally by Barama, and is splitting up another unused and now rescinded sustainable management concession (UNAMCO’s) into unsustainable 2-year State Forest Permissions. This flagrant neglect
of forest law, policy and procedures of course attracts the interest of other forest pirates, who assume that the law in Guyana will not be applied to them either.
Both the President and the Minister for Forestry have referred to the forest sector as generating only US$60 million in earnings.

This is the official statistic for declared FOB export values for 2008. It does not include the value of the forest sector to the domestic
economy. If we take the national GDP for 2008 at purchasing power parity (US$3,082 million, including exports and employment) and apply the GFC estimate of 3.4 per cent of the forest sector’s contribution to the domestic economy to the whole economy, then we have a more healthy figure of US$105 million for forestry, 1 3D 4 times the President’s estimate.
What is important is that this is a figure for a real economy, and so does not relate to the quite fantastical 10 per cent annuity of US$580 million postulated by McKinsey in December 2008, using data not in the public domain, and repeated in the Low Carbon Development Strategy. Surely this “bird in the hand” is worth a lot compared with the bird hiding in the very obscure LCDS bush.

Among other misapprehensions on the government side, we find the Minister’s statement in Kaieteur News that “the difficulties experienced . . .in obtaining this certification [Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certificate for quality of forest management] are as a result of bad forestry practices by others” (Kaieteur News, Tuesday 14 July 2009 – “Strategy will better manage forest exploitation – Persaud”). What does this extraordinary statement mean? Is the Minister referring to the illegal logging carried out in illegally rented concessions with the connivance of the GFC; as demonstrated in a court case in 2008? The Minister should be aware that the FSC has just circulated a public consultation draft of a revision of the FSC global standard, which makes specific reference to cases where government agencies fail to apply laws, regulations or procedures, or supply misleading information. Should be very relevant to Guyana.

The Forest Products Association might also be less fearful of the FSC certification as a plot by industrialized countries to impede market access by developing countries. FSC is an international non-government organization, and government agencies have only a very limited role. According to the FSC statistics for mid-June, Brazil has 63 current forest management certificates, covering 5.5 million hectares. In Guyana, only the sustainable management area of Iwokrama is FSC-certified (0.2 million hectares). The global total for FSC certificates is 116.3 million hectares.
Janette Bulkan
(FSC member)

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