Despite a statement by logging company Baishanlin that it has only “upgraded” old roads and trails through existing forest concessions, it has been pointed out that a previous study had indicated the need to construct at least 180 kilometres of new roads through intact forests in the areas where the company now operates.
The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for Sherwood Forrest Inc (SFI) which is controlled by Baishanlin had noted the need for a 250 km access road to the concession of which 180 km would be new road through intact forests. The ESIA was done in 2010 and updated in 2012. The Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) board had approved a joint venture between Baishanlin and SFI in August 2009.
The controversial road in the Region Six forest “upgraded” by Baishanlin this year is now close to the Sherwood concession and an impact study is only now being done. The Sherwood concession adjoins other concessions owned by Baishanlin. One source with knowledge of the matter said that Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) officials had spoken of trails that were used to access rubber trees for balata decades ago being upgraded but pointed out that these would have been very small allowing persons to walk in single file while the road can now accommodate heavy-duty vehicles. Also, it has been decades since balata would have been harvested on a large scale and the trails would have long since been overgrown.
When the ESIA for Sherwood was done, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had given approval for the study for the road to be separated. According to the Sherwood ESIA, the “EPA has granted approval for the ESIA for the road to be delinked from the ESIA for the SFEP (State Forest Exploratory Permit). Once the ESIA Report for SFI has been approved and the TSA (Timber Sales Agreement) is guaranteed, SFI will embark fully on the ESIA for the access road.” Now, however, the road is being covered under the ESIA currently being done for Baishanlin’s other concessions.
At the time, the Sherwood report stated that SFI was reviewing the engineering options for building a road between the concession area and the Kwakwani district and had started consultations with a number of parties, including the holders of Wanotobo Forest Resources Inc and Haimorakabra Logging Company Inc, two concessionaires north of SFI’s ‘concession’. Haimorakabra is owned by Baishanlin. The company wanted to establish “the most feasible alignment for an access road between Kwakwani District and the northern part of the concession area, a distance of 250 km, more or less…” and the report had said that a separate document will address environmental and social issues around the access road.
The ESIA for Sherwood had pointed out that access to the concession area is a serious challenge and the company will construct an access road to the concession and also develop the concession based road network well before timber harvesting operations begin. It had repeatedly emphasised that a separate ESIA Report relating to the 250 km access road will be prepared by the company.
The Sherwood report said that to deploy the necessary productive assets and to extract timber, SFI needs to construct an all-weather access road of about 250 km linking the concession area to a site near Kwakwani, Berbice River. “This access road alignment will traverse extensive parcels of currently intact forests and possibly, in the long term, drive the development of (new) forestry, agricultural, and mining enterprises respectively,” the report said.
Up to September, the road “upgraded” by Baishanlin was about 130 km long and based on the maps seen by Stabroek News, the alignment is close though not identical to the proposed Sherwood road.
The Sherwood ESIA also said that the company believes that access road (when linked to concession roads) will offer options for a major road link between the Corentyne coast and the New River Triangle, and between the Corentyne and the Rupununi. Up to that point, the 250 km access road was projected to cost about US$3.5 million. The report had explained that SFI is expected to construct more than 180 km of primary roads and to upgrade another 70 km in order to transport timber between the concession and Kwakwani. In addition up to 100 km of skid trails will be constructed within the concession area.
According to Sherwood’s –which was by then controlled by Baishanlin – “vision” for the road which it referred to as the Kwakwani-Cocoa Creek Access Road (KCCR), it believed that the access road “will initiate a comprehensive land use plan for the upper Berbice Region, spreading developments southward away from the coast, improving the flow of goods between the coast and the interior, and affording stakeholders other options for reaching and doing business with Region 9.”
The report had noted that the Berbice River is not suitable for commercial traffic above Kwakwani due to erratic variation in water level with rainfall and the prevalence of rock outcrops. “Essentially then a road is the best option for taking personnel and machinery and other production inputs to the concession area and for timber flows between the concession area and Kwakwani,” it said.
“The access road runs northerly for some 250 km along the Berbice-Corentyne Watershed linking the concession area to existing logging roads to Hururu Landing, right bank Berbice River. The KCCR is also a gift for loggers on right bank Berbice River and left bank Corentyne River. Simply put, the KCCR will initiate the launching of millions of dollars in businesses in the upper Berbice via logging, tourism, agriculture and possibly gold mining,” it said.
“A functional road to Cocoa Creek will provide new options for the flow of goods between Regions 6 and 10, and between Regions 6 and 9. A major challenge in planning the development of 250 km of forest road, including 180 km through intact forests is the absence of a land use plan for the upper Berbice District,” the report noted while adding that SFI believes it will initiate a strategic plan for the Corentyne-Essequibo Watershed.
The company had said that a challenge is to organise stakeholders to co-manage the use and maintenance of the road and to share a common approach to the resolution of conflicts, if these emerge.
“While many stakeholders are interested in SFI’s road venture and whether or not logging could be feasible with a 250 km haul distance, SFI contemplates the development of the road through partnerships with the private and public sectors. The road will bring so many benefits to so many stakeholders, that the road will eventually be less demanding financially than previously thought. SFI sees itself as the driver of a process, and it will proceed with the engineering and partnership building projects until other stakeholders come on board,” it had said.
In terms of the road alignment, SFI had said that it had consulted a number of surveyors and road engineers and the road alignment opted for was entirely feasible. The technical challenges for the actual construction of the road are entirely within the competence of SFI and no problem is anticipated in this regard, especially as the terrain is favourable for road construction, it had said.
In terms of the direct environmental impacts, the report had said that many of the impacts predicted for the road are in evidence on the UNAMCO road. “Soil erosion, mass movement of earth material on slopes, sedimentation and altered stream flow are the most common impacts-and these are all in evidence along the UNAMCO road, especially at the points where the UNAMCO road crosses the Paidaka and the Kerimeru rivers,” it had said.
“The removal of vegetative cover, the drying out and loosening of the soil, create conditions for the soil to be eroded, especially on slopes, where rainfall pummels the soil and surface water chooses its own runoff paths. Impacts would also come from road use: the higher the intensity of traffic, the higher the rate of erosion,” it had said while pointing to other environmental impacts such as, among other things, death of wildlife and reduction of the value of the water for human consumption without treatment.
In terms of the indirect impacts, the company said new roads can allow rural folks to migrate to the coastland, increasing the pressure on social services. On the other hand, more commonly in Guyana, new roads allow people to migrate in an unorganised manner to once isolated, intact areas forcing planners to include provision of basic services for them, it said.
In addition, it also pointed out that hunting and poaching could result. “Roads built by loggers and miners provide access for itinerant hunters. The hunting of wildlife and fishing are common practices that loggers, miners and other forest dwellers engage in. For the commercial hunters, roads allow them to reach hunting grounds much faster, increasing the frequency of hunting expeditions and also the intensity of the hunt,” it had said. This is one of several issues currently being raised by stakeholders.
The report also said that new roads can frequently take up large tracts of lands suitable for agriculture, while on the other hand, new roads facilitate access to fertile lands that were once isolated. In terms of economic growth and development, it said new roads facilitate a variety of legal businesses that facilitate hinterland development.
“New roads allow consumer goods and building materials for example to reach interior areas much faster, fostering businesses, including that by the transporters. Roads also allow vital materials such as fuel, books, teaching aids and medical supplies to reach hinterland communities much faster and probably cheaper. New roads lead to the discovery of exotic landscapes that foster ecotourism ventures. New roads also lead to the discovery or revelation of indigenous and archaeological assets of immense value to local peoples and even the global community,” it said. It had noted that in the colonial era, the Dutch spent considerable periods in the Berbice-Corentyne District and several items of cultural value probably remain hidden in the area and their discovery could be of immense value to historians and archaeologists.
Further, it said that roads increase connections between communities resulting in the increased potential for the spread of communicable diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis. Unpaved roads generate dust and noise that affect local communities. Poorly designed roads lead to water logged conditions that increase the risk of mosquito borne diseases such as malaria. An influx of new people to an area normally creates security fears among local residents, the report said.
The report had spoken of dealing with the impacts in several ways such as SFI using appropriate engineering skills and the appropriate machines. For the indirect impacts, SFI will develop a road corridor management plan after consultations with several public agencies and with Iwokrama and Barama Company Limited who have all been managing their forest road corridors in the face of use by several other parties. Several management prescriptions will be developed, it said.
The report had said that the main risk envisaged by the company is the inability to control the use of the access road.
This has been raised by stakeholders as it relates to the current road. While Baishanlin has said that it has only “upgraded” trails, stakeholders are convinced that a new road has been built. No current maps show trails on the same alignment as the road. The road in question extends from Kwakwani in Region 10 almost to Region Nine. An EPA source confirmed that no impact assessment was done for the road.
The law requires an environmental permit to be issued before any major project such as road construction is undertaken. Under the Environmental Protection Act, “a developer of any project listed in the Fourth Schedule, or any other project which may significantly affect the environment,” is required to apply to the EPA for an environmental permit for the project. Among others, the construction of roads, harbours and airfields are listed in the Fourth Schedule and such projects require environmental authorization before construction can begin. According to the Act, every person who fails to carry out an environmental impact assessment or who commences a project without obtaining an environmental permit as required under the Act or the regulations shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable to prescribed penalties.
Director for the Compliance and Enforcement division of the EPA Khemraj Parsram had told an ESIA meeting in Apoteri that the road would be covered under the ESIA currently being done. Deputy-Commissioner of Forests Tashreef Khan had also told the meeting that there was “upgrading” of trails and the company was given permission to “upgrade the trails.”
Despite Khan’s statement, no current official maps indicate the presence of “trails” where the road is now and it is now so wide as to enable heavy-duty equipment to traverse it, including logging trucks. Further, GFC maps seen by Stabroek News indicate a proposed road alignment by Baishanlin with the map showing no indication that a road was present in the area; it only refers to the proposed road. The road works occurred over the past several months.
Baishanlin has applied to the EPA for permission to begin large-scale logging and sawmilling operations at its forest concessions in Regions Six and Nine, and in its project summary the controversial Chinese company had said that in the preparatory phase, activities would include establishing initially more than 196 km of all-weather roads to allow access to the concession area. According to the company, the all-weather roads will incorporate a number of bridges and culverts and the establishment of a number of borrow pits. The construction of the roads will lead to the felling of trees along the planned road alignment, it had said. Khan, at the Apoteri meeting, told residents, after numerous concerns were expressed, that construction would halt immediately.
