Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat yesterday tabled in the National Assembly the Guyana-EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement or VPA.
This will pave the way for greater cooperation and increase market access and market share with the European Union (EU), a release from the ministry said.
This agreement was initialled in 2018 in Brussels. The VPA was then signed in December 2022 in Montreal, Canada by Bharrat, and finally tabled yesterday. In November 2022, the Natural Resources Minister at COP27 in Egypt signed a Forest Partnership Agree-ment with the EU for €5 million to support sustainable livelihood in forest-based communities. The agreement was formally handed to President Irfaan Ali in March of this year. Guyana is the first country to sign both the VPA and a Forest Partnership Agreement, the release said.
In 2012, a stakeholder-supported policy decision was taken by the Government of Guyana to enter into formal negotiations with the EU on developing a VPA. The terms of the VPA were negotiated through a collaborative process between Guyana and the EU. The VPA aims to support governance reform and strengthen enforcement activities in Guyana with commitments to improve transparency, accountability, legislative clarity and other aspects of governance.
When a nation becomes a VPA Partner Country, it can issue FLEGT licenses to its exporters under national FLEGT Licensing Schemes based on a Legality Assurance System (LAS) for agreed timber products destined for the EU. This system, which is rolled out at the national level, ensures that only legally produced timber products are exported to the EU.
To begin issuing FLEGT licences as required by the VPA, the release said that Guyana is building on existing national initiatives like its Wood Tracking System (WTS) to develop a robust timber legality assurance also known as the Guyana Timber Legality System (GTLAS).
