I WISH to refer to Michael Rouse’s letter in The Guyana Times (Saturday June 28, 2014) under the caption ‘Guyana’s rate of illegal logging is a mere one percent’.

Permit me to state the following:
I fully agree with the contents of the letter and it is my hope that the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA), EuFlegt Workshops in the Amerindian communities are repositioned in compliance with Guyana’s EuFlegt road map to achieve the voluntary partnership Agreement (VPA) with the EU to tackle illegal logging, to enhance the sustainable management of Guyana’s forest sector and the ongoing success of the Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) to fight against global climate change.
But the APA, at its EuFlegt workshops in the Amerindian communities, seem to be focusing much attention on international laws instead of our national laws, which the EU and Guyana acknowledge will be the basis for Guyana’s legality definition (LD) to arrive at VPA by September 2015. The APA’s problem in this regard is its total disrespect for the Amerindian Act 2006, which encompasses the principle of self-determination and the free prior and informed consent (FPIC), therefore, being consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Unfortunately, by its ignorance, the APA does not recognise this. This is why the APA’s workshops do not focus much attention and time on the Flegt legality definition, which is important for the VPA development. This, in my view – and I am subject to correction by the experts, that the APA’s plan, through its workshops, is to stifle, frustrate and kill the current EuFlegt process since it has been opposing Guyana’s LCDS since 2009; and mind you, the EuFlegt is an enabling activity of the LCDS. This is where the diplomatic community, the NGOs, CSOs and CBOs need to raise their voices in condemnation against the APA’s plan to frustrate and stifle Guyana’s EuFlegt process.
The APA’s opposition to Guyana’s LCDS since 2009 is definitely not strange, which is evidenced by its blatant refusal to accept former President Bharrat Jagdeo’s invitation to sit on the multi-stakeholder steering committee (MSSC) of Guyana’s LCDS to give input for the development of the LCDS.
Also, the AP’s public statement (March 8, 2010) and its letter to the Norwegian agency for development cooperation (March 10, 2010) are all evidence of the APA’s hostility against the LCDS. But instead of supporting the LCDS, the APA prefers to shout against it in the wilderness, just to attract funding for its agenda to deprive Guyana’s indigenous people of benefits from national projects such as the LCDS. The APA, in this regard, failed miserably and will fail where Guyana’s EuFlegt process is concerned.
The APA’s agenda to frustrate and stifle Guyana’s EuFlegt process is linked to its own December 2013 communication on Guyana’s draft legality definition on legal timber, where it disregards Guyana’s legality matrix in preference for international laws for the achievement of Guyana’s Flegt VPA with the EU. This is absolute ignorance, anti-national, unpatriotic and anti-Government.
My recommendations, therefore, is for the APA’s EuFlegt workshops in the Amerindian communities be suspended until Guyana and the EU appoint an international panel to monitor and evaluate the APA’s Flegt workshops and not excluding the carrying out of an examination of its workshop material to ensure consistency with Guyana’s EuFlegt road map.

PETER PERSAUD