WE could tap ourselves on the shoulders for being recognised as one of the very few countries in the world with forests that possess the lifeline for many countries, especially those in the industrial world. In fact, forests around the world are so recognised now that March 21 every year has been set aside for the celebration of World Forestry Day.
This is the day on which we, among other things, heap recognition on our forests for their carbon storage services to the human race.
Our forests threw out their lifeline to our people who made use of their generosity in different ways over the centuries. It was indeed under the canopy of our forests that civilisation after civilisation sought refuge from the elements in their efforts to survive in the wilds, in their ruthless plunder of the forests’ floors.
These were unfortunately the days when caution was thrown to the wind in man’s desire to satisfy his insatiable appetite for wealth.
The centuries of plunder did not shy away our forests from sticking to their task, and like obedient children, they dutifully continue to discharge their services to human kind with the delivery of carbon, so much so that today we are being envied by many other countries with forest potentials.
With more than 18 million hectares of this precious, renewable natural resource, ours is the task to ensure that this affluent resource must be carefully handled in our desires to derive extra socio-economic benefits from it.
Thanks to our vision, Guyana has drawn international acclaim for developing new and replicable models of ‘payment for forest services’ agreements as is the case with the Memorandum of Understanding with the Kingdom of Norway, which will see this country drawing down approximately US$250M by the year 2015 for the carbon storage capacity of our forests.
In all our ruminations, the respected and careful handling of our forests must always be placed on the front burner. This is imperative because of the multi-dimensional services that could be derived from our very precious resource.
It could be recalled that timber was listed as one of the main resources of this country, and the felling of trees in our forests for the export of this commodity in earlier times was done in an ad hoc manner. In addition, the need for lumber in the local building sector is always felt with the ongoing housing drive.
However, although multiple use forestry utilisation activities have been going on for centuries, our deforestation rate has been internationally rated at less than 0.06 percent.
Our forests have always been recognised as an integral part of the lives of all Guyanese because of their all-important role which we are obliged to safeguard. This is something which we must, at all times, do with a great degree of pride.
We also wish to echo the sentiments of Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Mr. Robert Persaud, when he said in a message to mark World Forestry Day: “Guyana has long recognised that our forests have much more developmental opportunities to offer apart from the traditional land uses of forestry, (timer extraction, mining, etc).”
With all of this, we cannot deny the significant role of the indigenous people who shared a sacred relationship with the forest. On this note Minister Persaud said in his message: “They are also key partners in the Community Forestry Programme which was created with the main objective of ensuring that communities have legal access to state lands neighbouring to their communities, for their socio-economic development.”
Our forests have served us well in the past, and continue to do so today in the face of adversaries from within who would stop at nothing in their uncouth and irresponsible attitude to cast aspersion even if the government wins out for the people.