Team for UK visit to appeal greenheart ban

May 02, 2017 News

Guyana is moving to send a team to the United Kingdom to appeal a ban of Greenheart lumber

Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman

and logs.
Giving an update of the situation, Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman said that it is the view that the situation is far from lost.
“As you know, Iwokrama has managed to ship to the UK and therefore we are optimistic that there is room for negotiation.”
The official disclosed the Ministry of Business and team had met with High Commissioner to the UK, Hamley Case, on the issue.
“He has taken up the matter and we are working to send a team to the UK to meet with the stakeholders there.”
Greenheart is one of the country’s prime species, in high demand for its use as piles and ideal for marine projects, including wharves.
In December, Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development, which operates a large forest concession, announced that it was preparing to send a shipment to the UK.
The shipment was to be made by Wijma, a UK sales and distribution division of the European Sustainable Tropical Timber Coalition (STTC).
The shipment would have been made after Iwokrama’s operations were certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
The STTC is an alliance of industry, business, government and NGOs dedicated to increasing European demand for sustainably sourced tropical timber.
The forest, located in the forest-rich Guiana Shield region and managed by the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development, was audited by the Soil Association, with backing from STTC’s founder and lead supporter Dutch government-backed IDH, the sustainable trade initiative.
Greenheart, unique to Guyana, is widely used in the UK and across the rest of Europe in marine applications. But in the UK, where it is especially popular for sea defences, the Environment Agency (EA) issued a procurement ban in 2015 after saying that proof of sustainable sourcing was inadequate.
Earlier last year, when it became public knowledge that UK’s greenheart market was in deep trouble because of the EA’s stance, Government and the private sector had announced collaborative efforts to have it reversed. The restrictions cut exports of wood products to UK by almost 65 percent.

Guyana is moving to send a team to the UK to appeal a ban on Greenheart.

EA is one of UK’s biggest buyers of lumber for state projects in that country.
Trotman and Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin had met with representatives of the private sector and stakeholders of the logging industry to tackle the issue
Greenheart was until two years ago widely used in sea defence projects by UK contractors.
Government and private sector agreed to take the matter to the diplomatic level, among other things.
Minister Gaskin had insisted that the issue had indeed been a troubling one that should be of concern to all Guyanese. Greenheart, he stressed, is part of the “Guyanese identity” with the current procurement restrictions harming exports and local production.
Minister Trotman had made it clear that Guyana’s systems of monitoring and verification to ensure logging is done in a sustainable and legal manner have been tested and proven over time.
It is a standard that is not only recognised by the current EU-FLEGT negotiations but by Norway, which had a US$250M agreement with Guyana for the protection of the forests here. More than US$100M has been paid out, after intense checks were carried out by inspectors to ensure that deforestation levels are kept at manageable levels and that logging is conducted in a sustainable and legal manner.
The main concern, Trotman had said, is to ensure that Guyana’s reputation is kept intact where forestry activities are concerned.
Guyana would be banking on High Commissioner Case, whose background is in forestry, to lead the charge in the delegation to the UK to meet with EA and others.
Over the last four years, Greenheart exports were a massive US$27M.
The impact saw Guyana’s Greenheart exports nose-diving last year from US$3.2M in 2014 to US$1.1M in 2015. This represented a 65% decline.
Already, the impact on logging activities is being felt, with jobs and markets affected. Not only have foreign exchange earnings declined, but the lives of thousands of Indigenous persons have also been impacted.
EA did not consult with Guyana on the issue, officials had said.
Timber represents a major export earner for Guyana, in 2015 totaled US$45.6M, compared to US$54.1M in 2014.