Guyana gets help to market timber
Iwokrama applies for US$1M funding
Stabroek News
June 3, 2003
The International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) is to provide financial and technical assistance to the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) and the Forest Pro-ducts Association (FPA) for the effective marketing of Guyana’s forest resources.
Speaking at a press briefing yesterday, Commissioner of Forests, James Singh, said that there was need for a more structured and coordinated approach to such marketing.
The staff of the Commissioner is to prepare a project proposal which would also include environmental services. Studies, Singh said, would have to be done to determine the cost of those services.
These discussions came out of the 34th session of the International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC) and related meetings held in Panama from May 12 to May 17. These meetings were attended by Singh, Minister of Fisheries, Other Crops and Livestock, Satyadeow Sawh and acting Director-General of the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development, Dr. Graham Watkins.
The ITTO’s lobbying for funding for Iwokrama also came up in the discussions. Iwokrama received more than US$700,000 earlier this year in assistance for the development of management plans, feasibility studies and inventories and is in the process of applying for funding for a new project. “In September, we will be completing the ITTO programme on sustainable development,” a senior Iwokrama official said yesterday. He added that the new proposal would be for another US$1M. The centre recently took cost-cutting measures in the wake of the cessation of its core funding.
Peter van der Hout of the Forestry Training Centre said that the ITTO had contributed towards the development of flipcharts, manuals and other materials based on the Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) project. Training in this regard is to continue at Barama Company Limited during this month. He said a quantity of Caterpillar equipment was expected to arrive in the country and a field site at Manaka on the Essequibo River would be completed by the end of August.
Commissioner Singh said that two companies, Barama and Variety Woods, were moving towards being certified by the end of the year. He said the GFC had developed a Code of Practice which encompassed social and environmental conditions. He added that the GFC would do extensive monitoring to ensure that concessionaires comply with that code.
When asked about the human resource challenges of monitoring very large concessions, Singh said routine and impromptu visits were made to sites to ascertain whether sound environmental principles were being employed in the logging process. He said some large concessions had resident inspectors. Persons in charge of concessions have to submit yearly management plans against which they would be monitored. He also said there was an entire division of the Commission dedicated to monitoring.
