Dear Editor,
The junior Minister for Forestry has been reported in daily newspapers recently as saying that three mangrove tree species are legally protected in Guyana. Where, exactly, can this protection be read?
The websites of GINA, Ministry of Agriculture and Guyana Forestry Commission contain no notice of legal amendment to section 17 (Protected trees) of the Forest Regulations 1953.
That section only protects bulletwood (Manilkara bidentata, an ecological “keystone” species) which the GFC readily permits to be exported to Asia as unprocessed logs (Kaieteur News Letter to the Editor, Thursday 14 January 2010, “Bulletwood timber sold cheaply by Guyana for high-value processing in Asia” – http://www.kaieteur-newsonline.com/2010/01/14/bulletwood-timber-sold-cheaply-by-guyana-for-high-value-processing-in-asia/).
What exactly is the nature of the protection which the Minister is providing now to mangroves?
The draft mangrove management plan or manual, which had been on the GFC website earlier in this decade, has long disappeared from public view.
Presumably the Minister intends to protect the three species – black mangrove (Avicennia germinans), red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle, courida) and white mangrove (Laguncularia racemosa)? But should not this protection also be given to the upriver mangroves (Rhizophora harrisonii and Rhizophora racemosa), because tree cutters and GFC staff may not be able to tell them apart? And what about the shore-protecting buttonwood (Conocarpus erecta)?
Yours faithfully,
Janette Bulkan