AS a symbolic gesture to Prime Minister Sam Hinds, the Forest Products Development and Marketing Council (FPDMC) presented a prototype wooden comb, a demonstration of what could be achieved in terms of value-added in the forest industry with the right techniques. The presentation was done at the Prime Minister’s Office in Wight’s Lane, Kingston yesterday. Presenting the wooden comb to Hinds was Industry and Product Development Officer of the FPDMC, Laura Singh.
In mid 2009 Prime Minister Hinds visited the Forest Products Development and Marketing Council Inc. (FPDMC) as part of his outreach to neighbouring offices of the newly constructed GPL facility to discuss with surrounding offices how the noise from the new power plant would have affected them.
During discussion with the Council’s Executive Director, Derrick Cummings, the Prime Minister had showed him a wooden comb- a value-added product which was presented to him during a visit to China.  “I was challenging him to see what was possible,” he said. “There are issues with drying, curing, whether the species would be stable in terms of moisture content,” he said.
“It looks like we are on our way there,” he said, of the local versions of the comb. But he said that the next question is what price to attach to the products.
“You have made a good first step. We have to get an idea of the value range of the products and an idea of the price that people are willing to pay,” he asserted.
The Council was  encouraged by the thoughts shared on value added and downstream production and commissioned Ms. Irene Bacchus-Holder a craft producer of Region 10, to not only manufacture a wooden comb but to do so using one the Guyana Forestry Commission’s twelve successfully tested  lesser used species of wood – Itikiborabali. 
As a result, the FPDMC and the private sector are recognising that it is necessary to widen species utilisation to increase value and profit, without expanding the area of harvest.
According to the FPDMC, 15 LUCs have been successfully tested and an additional 11 are identified to be tested.
The FPDMC said that crucial to the widening of species selection is market demand. “Guyana is pursuing this by focusing on the processing of value added wood products. Unlike the export of unprocessed timber, the manufacture of furniture, doors, spindles and other value added wood products allow for the utilisation of LUS that might otherwise not have a demand on the international market,” the body said.
The FPDMC said that processing these woods create a domestic demand for species abundant in forest inventories while increasing the returns necessary to cover the costs associated with Guyana’s efforts to the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and sustainable forest management.
With the assistance of initial research carried out by Tropenbos International foundation, and recent work by the Timber Research and Development Association (TRADA), reliable information is provided about some of the many LUS found throughout Guyana with the aim of encouraging greater acceptance and utilisation of these LUS of timber, both domestically and internationally.
According to the FPDMC, this information is also part of the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) and forms part of their database.
The next step in this process is the dissemination of wood property information already embarked upon by the FPDMC in sensitisation outreach programmes to stakeholders of the industry. The organisation said that a booklet is used to disseminate LUS information entitled ‘Utilisation of Lesser Used Wood Species in Guyana’. This, the FPDMC said, is necessary so that manufacturers of wood products can become familiar with the new wood species that may be available at affordable prices to customers. “As demand grows for these woods, so will the value of forest resources that are currently undervalued due to previous ‘creaming’ of main commercial timbers. This increase in value is important for the sustainable management of Guyana’s natural forests and the future of its forest products industry,” the FPDMC said.