The Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) refers to an article in the Friday 8th May 2015 edition of Stabroek News captioned: “Bai Shan Lin has most certainly contravened laws, regulations and approved policies” – Janette Bulkan and John Palmer.GFC is alarmed that these two writers continue to regurgitate incorrect and non-factual statements on the forest sector in Guyana, even when their inaccuracies have been publicly pointed out on numerous occasions.
The continuing false allegations are even more disturbing when one considers that the GFC has invited both individuals to visit the GFC to be fully apprised on the real undisputable facts.
Since this misinformation is conveniently being circulated close to Election Day 2015, GFC will once again present the public with the accurate information which dispels the notion that Bai Shan Lin (BSL) is involved in some form of illegality and is benefitting from preferential treatment by the GFC or the Government of Guyana.
Fact 1: BSL has always exported logs in keeping with the GFC and the National Log Export Policy. The GFC records can prove this and it will indeed be very informative for these writers to show the records that they are basing this misinformation on.
Additionally, information on all of BSL’s joint ventures (JV’s) were made public; not once, but on multiple occasions. The allegation of “transfer of operational control” or “landlording” is baseless-it is a GFC Board approved joint venture as was pointed out in detail in the public media (and certainly not a “rentier” agreement as is so maliciously speculated).
Fact 2: All exports of forest produce follow the GFC and other relevant Government of Guyana Agency guidelines. These systems have been fully examined by credible independent and objective auditors and they have all concluded that the systems are adequate, appropriate and functional. A few minor recommendations for improving the systems have been proposed and these are currently being reviewed. To allege that there is customs fraud without providing factual evidence is unacceptable and in fact, potentially damaging to the forestry sector export markets and the livelihoods of many. The writers should consider these implications before making unsubstantiated statements.
Fact 3: As mentioned above, there is no evidence of customs fraud; similarly, there is absolutely no evidence to show “false values”. Prices are declared by species, volumes and by grades contrary to the writers’ false allegations. A simple check with the GFC could have clarified this.
Fact 4: GFC accepts that the level of implementation of health and safety guidelines needs to be improved; however, this is indeed applicable to many companies in the sector. GFC is continuously working with the entire sector to promote better compliance of these important aspects. All companies, inclusive of BSL, pay wages and salaries in accordance with the GoG guidelines.
Fact 5: This is a non-issue. GFC has publicly stated that DTL is not under BSL management- either through a JV or under a rental agreement. Additionally, the writers are simply being mischievous when they state that “GFC said that this was not a takeover, merely a transfer of shares…” – GFC never made such a false statement!
Fact 6: Again, this is a thoroughly ventilated issue- the undisputed and well publicized fact is that BSL has legal access to 627,072 ha as shown below:
344,849 ha as State Forest Exploratory Permits (SFEP’s) – an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA); a Forest Inventory (FI), and a Business Plan have to be submitted to the satisfaction of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and GFC before a Timber Sales Agreement (TSA) is granted which allows for full scale harvesting in accordance with GFC guidelines

274,053 ha as Timber Sales Agreement -Joint Venture Agreements
8,170 ha as State Forest Permissions
The estimate of 1.4 million hectares is simply ridiculous to put it extremely mildly. BSL has also corrected the figure on its website and publicly clarified this figure.
Fact 7: Some issues re non-payment of workers were brought to GFC’s attention. Following investigations, GFC found that it was really the Company(s) contracted by BSL to do specific work that defaulted in making payments to their workers. Nevertheless, GFC was able to work with BSL to satisfactorily resolve these issues.
Contrary to the writers, GFC is not in receipt of reports by Amerindian Communities, claiming non-payment for logs received by BSL.
Fact 10: BSL is complying satisfactorily with the TSA conditions. If they were not, then the several independent objective audits done by qualified auditors would have identified same.
GFC asserts further, that there is no circumventing of Guyana’s logging laws by any logging company, or any other forestry sector based company.
The GFC has very robust and functional systems, procedures and guidelines which all forest sector companies are audited against; if there are any breaches to these, appropriate action is taken based on the findings of a thorough investigation and in accordance with the forest law.
It is true that only a limited number of species are being harvested by the entire forest sector concessionaires. But in the same breath, it must be mentioned that the current logging intensity of Guyana is only about 30 % of the Annual Allowable Harvest- as such there is no current threat of over-harvesting to any commercial species.

Also, as stated before, the GFC, the Forest Products Development and Marketing Council (FPDMC), the Forest Products Association (FPA) and other stakeholders are aggressively trying to promote the local and export uptake of the lesser used species (LUS).
Already we are seeing positive indications of more LUS log and lumber exports; as well as increased LUS use in the local construction and manufacturing industry. This is, however, a market penetration process and not something that happens overnight.
Additionally, GFC is finalising work on implementing a “harvesting by species quota”, based on the inventory data. Pilot inventories in concessions are enumerating trees using the GPS, and accurate geo-referenced species stock maps are being generated. This will allow for the phased introduction of a harvesting regime that is based on species quota.
With respect to the investment promises not implemented: BSL had a guarantee from their financiers that the company would access the necessary funding for their forest harvesting and proposed wood processing activities.
However, this funding was not to be accessible in a lump sum total amount; rather it was to be disbursed in tranches based on BSL meeting agreed deliverables. This is the norm for the phased disbursement of large scale loans.
Unfortunately, BSL has not been able to meet all the requirements of the financiers; essentially this was due to a necessary BSL submission not meeting the GoG’s expected standard.
GoG then made it absolutely clear to BSL that since their submission was not of an acceptable quality, it had to be revised thoroughly. BSL has since re-submitted the required documentation for review by the GoG. This is undisputable hard evidence that the GoG has not given any preferential treatment to BSL, contrary to the false claims of some media.
If this new examination shows that the revised BSL submission is of the quality required by GoG, only then will it be approved. This will then pave the way for further release of funds for BSL to accelerate work on the wood processing facility as their priority activity.
Once funding is released, the GoG and BSL will agree on a detailed time-bound roadmap for this wood processing facility. The Government has however, already emphasized to BSL its disappointment and alarm that the construction and operationalisation of this wood processing facility has been unduly delayed.
Meanwhile, the GFC would like to restate its commitment to the transparent and accountable management of Guyana’s forest resources, irrespective of the investors being local or foreign based.
GFC would again appeal to stakeholders, especially those in the public media, to verify the facts before publicising erroneous information. GFC also invites the writers and any other interested person(s) to visit the GFC, and the forest/logging operations to see for themselves that GFC and Guyana are practicing sustainable forest management on the ground, in a very transparent and collaborative manner.

Guyana Forestry Commission