Georgetown : Today a shipment of over 2,700 cubic metres of sawn greenheart lumber was being loaded in a chartered vessel to depart for the United Kingdom (UK) at the John Fernandes Wharf, Water Street, Georgetown.
The lumber was purchased by the European Company “Aitken and Howard” at a cost of approximately US $2.5M. This company has been buying sawn greenheart lumber in Guyana for over 30 years.
Representative of Aitken and Howard, Mr. Roderick Aitken disclosed that the greenheart is for typically large engineering projects throughout the UK and Europe, to be used primarily for bridge construction, marine defence projects and oil industry projects among others.
He further stated that the buying policy is for suppliers to do as much downstream processing locally as possible. This enables the local suppliers to get a better profit, as well as generate more employment.
He also praised Guyana’s Wood Tracking System (WTS), which is national in scale, and emphasised that it was largely due to the WTS that they were able to import the timber into the European market.
“The WTS gives us and our customers a very high degree of confidence that the lumber is all traceable and the logs have been felled in accordance with the GFC’s (Guyana Forestry Commission) code of practice. It cannot be underestimated how important these traceability schemes are to the end customer and are a part of the requirements to export to Europe”.
Representative of one of the supplying companies, Specialised Timber Services, Justin Habibullah, noted that this project has created opportunities for them to get a better market price.
He said, “this charted shipment has helped our small company in getting the timber to the market cheaper, than doing it with container, so it’s a wonderful opportunity for us, also with the legal requirement to Europe…with the regulations that the GFC has implemented and is monitoring with the Tracking System, that has helped us to have very good traceability up to the sawmill where we take over and track every piece of lumber.”
In Guyana’s National Forest Policy and other relevant Policy documents, it is clearly articulated that State Forest resources are part of the patrimony of all Guyanese. The Government has also emphasised that these resources must be accessed in keeping with the legal framework, and sustainably harvested in keeping with social and environmental global best practices, adapted to the Guyana specific situation.
Over the years, guidelines covering all relevant aspects of forest operations have been jointly developed through collaborative efforts between the Government and private sector groups such as the Forest Products Association (FPA), the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association (GMSA), and the Community Forestry Associations (CFAs), the Natural Resources Ministry stated in a release.
Guyana has also voluntarily invited independent auditors and assessors to objectively examine its Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) guidelines and their implementation at the forest concession level. These audits and assessments have shown that the SFM systems are credible, robust, and understood, and implemented satisfactorily. Additionally, if breaches occur, they are quickly detected and addressed in accordance with the legislation.
These assessments have also confirmed that Guyana’s deforestation rate is extremely low, that is less than 0.1 %. The net result of the above interventions is that Guyana is globally recognised as a source of legal and sustainably harvested forest products.
The Government has been emphasising the multiple benefits that arise to all stakeholders through the conversion of logs into sawn lumber and other added value forest products.
Guyana’s timbers continue to have access to demanding overseas markets and the country’s forest sector continues to make positive progress.
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