Commissioner of Forestry, Mr. James Singh, who recently returned from the 34th session of the International Tropical Timber Council, which was held in Panama between May 12 and 17, 2003, said that during the session he had lobbied the ITTO for financial and technical assistance.

Singh, speaking during a press conference yesterday chaired by Minister of Fisheries, Crops and Livestock Mr. Satyadeow Sawh, said ITTO has agreed to provide Guyana with more financial and technical support to implement a number of recommendations coming out of the session.

He said that during the session, there were also two other meetings held, one which dealt with phased approaches to forest certification, and the other, with the negotiations for a follow up agreement to the current ICPA accord, which will come to an end in 2004.

The Commissioner pointed out that an expert panel from ITTO in October 2002 conducted a diagnostic review on the forestry industry in Guyana. Arising out of that review, were a number of recommendations, which were also presented there.

The recommendations entailed the need for a more structured, coordinated and comprehensive approach to the marketing of Guyana's forest products.

The need to expand our commercial species that are currently on the market, which will entail the promotion of our lesser-used species, was also recommended. It was pointed out that there is also need for more specialization in the industry.

As an immediate follow up to the recommendations, the Forestry Commission staff is preparing a project proposal, which will be submitted to ITTO in November this year, the Forestry Commissioner said.

The proposal will make way for an expert in marketing to visit Guyana who will work with the Commission and the Forest Producers Association (FPA) to assist in marketing Guyana's forest products.

Other issues, which were addressed at the meeting dealt with the need to include environmental services into the new tropical timber agreement. Singh pointed out that this issue is extremely important for Guyana since 75 percent of the country consists of tropical rainforest and is being asked to conserve on the use of its forest.

Singh said ITTO would be conducting studies to find out how much it would cost to carry out these environmental services.

He pointed out that ITTO is also moving away from being strictly a timber organization to being a more broadly based forest products organization where environmental services would be included.

In addition, Singh also reported that Guyana was highly praised for the way it has been dealing with Reduced Impact Logging Programme in Guyana.

Singh said that the Iwokrama Center for Rainforest Conservation and Development, which has a project with ITTO to sustain-ably manage it rainforest concession, was also discussed. This project is being funded to the tune of US$700,000.