THE National Forest Inventory will commence today, according to Commissioner of the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC), James Singh.

The Guyana Chronicle reported earlier this year that the sum of $120M was set aside to commence a forest inventory to effectively manage the nation’s forestry resources.

Addressing stakeholders recently at the GFC Kingston location, Singh shared that the National Forest Inventory will begin on October 18, and it is expected to last 3-4 years.

The last national forest inventory was done perhaps in the 1950s, according to Singh. “Since then we have not been updating it on a national scale,” he explained.

Singh further said that the GFC is looking to bolster the information available. “We are now looking at a sampling design that captures the entire country and basically give us a fair idea of what the resource base nationally is,” he stated.

Further, he said that this inventory will only foster developments in the sector. Singh highlighted that from the inventory, the GFC and its stakeholders can engage in more informed planning, strategise forest resource allocations and generally have a clear idea of the resources on hand.

“So, it is going to be better for the stakeholders and for the policy makers and [it will] feed into the work of national bodies such as the Department of the Environment, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and others,” he contended.

A challenge, however, is that the GFC does not have all the human resources to carry out the inventory and, as such, he told stakeholders that persons in communities who have been trained in forest inventory or who are willing to be trained will be recruited.

The meeting with the stakeholders was held to update them on the forestry sector and the plans for the remainder of the year, Singh told the Guyana Chronicle.

Importantly, the European Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (EU FLEGT) is a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) that government has engaged with the EU, and he said it is important to keep the stakeholders abreast.

At the end of 2017, Guyana officially signed on to the VPA with the EU. Once Guyana begins FLEGT licensing, the products covered by the VPA will only be exported to the EU, accompanied by the EU’s FLEGT licences attesting to their legality. Singh told the stakeholders that the discussions on the content of the VPA between the EU and the government have been completed and from November, works will begin in this regard.