Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Persaud recently led a delegation to Malaysia for talks on the Malaysian experience with sustainable forest management, and their implementation of the European Union Forest Law, Enforcement, Governance and Trade (EU FLEGT) protocol.
A release from the Government Information Agency (GINA) on Tuesday said that the Guyanese team which included Tasreef Khan, Deputy Commis-sioner of the Guyana Forestry Commis-sion (GFC) and Gavin Agard, Forestry Specialist from the Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, held bilateral meetings with representatives from the Government of Malaysia and senior executives from Samling Global Limited (the parent company of Barama Company Limited).
The discussions focused on possible avenues for collaboration and cooperation between the governments of Malaysia and Guyana related to sustainable forest management, including capacity building for monitoring deforestation within the mining sector.
The release also said that the delegation also had extensive discussions with the Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC) and the Malaysian Timber Council (MTC) on the Malaysian experience gained over the past decade since commencing formal negotiations on the implementation of the EU FLEGT.
The Guyana delegation also visited several commercial forest operations including a large scale oil palm plantation and a state-of-the-art plywood factory and expressed interest in learning more about the technology and possible transfer of knowledge on improved value added processing to benefit Guyana’s forestry sector.
