Latest update April 7th, 2025 6:08 AM
Notes on the Greenheart species of wood in Guyana’s forest
Dear Editor;
Many articles are published in your paper with the designation, “Forestry Experts”. As these opinions seem to conflict with some professional papers published by reputable agencies, the question is now raised as to what are the qualifications of your “Forestry Experts”?
One name mentioned is from a ‘well known’ Guyanese family which is “working Timber.” Where was that “Expert” qualified? If in Canada, forestry in that country is far different than that of the Guiana Shield countries. Guyana’s forest grows on very poor soils. Because of this our forest has been described as starved slow growth forest.
The fallacy that Greenheart trees remaining in worked over areas are only large defective trees is a notion encouraged by Tropenbos. It should be pointed out that Tropenbos’ work in Guyana was mainly done by Graduate students seeking to get their doctorate. This should not discredit a high percentage of work done by Tropenbos; however, there are little discrepancies such as the identifying of Cogwood as Greenheart, (Chlococardium rodiei) previously classified as Nectandra Rodioei. This is in their book, “Major Timber Trees of Guyana, A field guide, Series 2.”
Cogwood, known as Greenheart, is a Jamaica species classified as “Ceanothus Choroxylon = Zizyphus, completely different from our Demerara Greenheart. (Note: there are at least fifteen (15) Greenhearts from around the world.
In a study by E.C. Clarke on the “Regeneration of Greenheart in worked out areas”, it will be found in Table C, that there are 33 defective trees left in the ten acres that were studied. These range in size categories of four inch increments. Each category has a different quantity of defective trees.
E.C. Clarke’s work shows that Greenheart trees growing in the ten acre study area, there were one hundred and ninety five (195) trees from six inches and up, of these thirty three (33) were defective. All thirty three (33) were spread out in the size categories from six (6) to twenty eight (28) inches and up. There were also four thousand, five hundred and ninety seven (4,597) seedlings, saplings below ten (10) inches in height; this would be four hundred and fifty nine (459) per acre.
The Industry at this time was restricted from cutting any tree below twelve (12) inches in diameter, and a Greenheart tree six (6) inches in diameter and up yields seeds. So the suggestion that only old defective trees remain after taking a crop is wrong. A fact is Tropenbos found that Greenheart in the worked over forest still remained the third in abundance in the forest.
John Willems
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