Dear Editor,
Your leader yesterday (‘More information needed on deforestation’) relates to something that struck me recently, even though the subject of forestry is one I have not read or thought very deeply on these last eleven years. I am told by small-scale miners that they are not allowed to sell logs or lumber converted from trees they cut down in the process of clearing their mining sites and access trails. Because they have no timber concessions from GFC, they cannot legally transport forest products off their mining lands. The many trees they fell are burned or left to rot.
I am trying to find out if the same applies to medium- and large-scale mining companies. Miners cannot be expected to make the complex negotiations and plans required for timber extraction permits, particularly as regards selective logging; they have to clear-cut their sites and access roads. To me as a lay onlooker, it seems an avoidable loss of employment and of potential profit if our Natural Resources regime forces valuable timber to be wasted.
There may be a way to allow legal movement of round or even semi-processed timber from mining areas not covered by GFC concessions. I understand that Amerindians can get, without TSA formalities, GFC tags for transporting forest produce from their titled lands to market. If this is correct, perhaps the miners can be encouraged to approach the GFC for similar treatment.
The continued fall in gold prices has caused a reduction in new operations, even abandonment of some sites. This started in 2013, perhaps early enough to account for the drop in deforestation that you discussed yesterday. As gold profits continue to fall, it could make sense to look into another way to profit from mining investment in road and machinery infrastructure, by utilizing some of the forest resources that would otherwise be destroyed. Perhaps most small-scale miners have never considered this issue, but a few have told me they feel the matter is quite urgent, to allow some of the trees they cut to enter the economy, whether they export them as logs or not.
Recent news, as your editorial comments, is that the majority of Guyana’s reported deforestation is attributable to mining. Other news is of direct foreign investment in large open pits, costing our nature yet more trees. Judging by results of the long-announced reafforestation of the Omai site, this raises other issues of future land use and ecology. Meanwhile, maybe it is not too late to give some thought to the trees that miners have to waste.
Yours faithfully,
Gordon Forte
