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Guyana cashes in on more dollars for value-added wood products
Value-added wood products have helped Guyana earn more
Guyana’s forest sector continues to practice sustainable forest management and value-added production geared towards sustainable development in the context of the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
According to Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Robert Persaud, sustainable forest management has resulted in an increase in the value of exports for 2012 when compared to 2011 owing to more value-added timber and timber products to traditional and non-traditional markets.
Despite the increase in the value generated and the heightened interest in other activities within the forest, which also require the disturbance of the flora and the forest, Guyana’s current rate of deforestation is 0.0545 per cent of forested area, he explained.
As a result, Guyana has been commended internationally for its low rate of deforestation, the Minister stated. This, he added, is due to the Guyana Forestry Commission’s established guidelines for Sustainable Forest Management, inclusive of a Code of Practice for harvesting and stakeholders’ compliance.
This low rate of deforestation is maintained by allowing concessionaires to only fell trees in accordance with a maximum allowable annual harvest; also logging is very selective and low impact techniques are used. All concessions above 20,000 acres utilize a felling cycle rotational basis for their harvest; this ranges from 25 to 60 years.
Guyana’s sustainable annual harvest is approximately 1.2M cubic meter in actuality, the harvest is only at 40 per cent of this allowable total. A very robust system of monitoring is done, and the GFC has 32 strategically located stations, and about 30 mobile ones that check for compliance with procedures, Minister Persaud highlighted.
Notwithstanding the set guidelines and heightened monitoring, the forest can also be disturbed by effects of climate change which could cause extreme flooding or extreme drought with possible negative impacts on the forest, he added.
In addition, conversion of forest to agriculture, or homesteads, whilst not a problem now, could be a potential one in the future. Infrastructure development could also introduce some challenges due to the expansion of the hinterland road programme.
Among the value-added products are plywood and furniture.
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