By Guillermo Navarro

(Forest Officer, FAO-EU FLEGT Program – Latin America)

WITH its vast virgin lands and pristine forest, Guyana has all the potential to become a major exporter of legal timber to Europe. The key actors in the timber value chain recognise this potential, and although the work to create a well-defined legal wood market has been hard, the desire to achieve this goal is much greater. However, could Guyana become the Finland of Latin America?

Guyana has had an important history and culture of wood architecture. In the past, the capital city possessed a kaleidoscope of architectural styles with real architectural wooden jewels, which have given Guyana its identity and distinction, especially among tourists and visitors. Nowadays, the transformation is evident. The city now displays concrete, steel and glass infrastructure, losing its rich wooden architectural heritage. In addition, low forest and land governance contributing to land-use conflicts, causing deforestation and forest degradation as well as increase incidences of illegal logging are just some factors which hinder the local timber industry.

Finland is a developed country with a forest-based economy, and a forest cover of eighty per cent, which accounts for 20 million hectares of coniferous forests, a consolidated forestry business model where forest produces wealth and aggregated value, which has been the main incentive for managing, conserving and expanding their forest resources. This Nordic country has an annual production of 70 million cubic meters of wood, with a value of US$2.2B. The annual growth of Finnish forests exceed 100 million cubic meters in just 80 days of the year, which is the length of the growing season in this cold country. This makes the tree-growing cycle in Finland about 170 years, while in Guyana, it would be just 25-30 years.

On the other hand, Guyana has a similar forest cover to Finland, which is 77per cent. With 16.5 million hectares of forest, of which about 14.3 million hectares is suitable for forest production, only one- third is currently subject to some kind of forest management. The annual forest production of Guyana is only 400,000 cubic meters, and the contribution to the GDP is only four per cent.

However, Guyana has a competitive advantage over Finland and other forested countries: A warm and humid tropical climate that allows the forest to grow almost all year round. Its high biodiversity provides a great variety of tree species, with highly-priced timbers that cannot be grown anywhere else. In relative terms, Guyana has a more productive and valuable forest base than Finland.

Guyana is currently developing a Green State Development Strategy (GSDS), in which forest management and wood use will play a key role by developing sustainable industries, livelihoods, as well as a sound way for fighting and adapting to climate change events. In doing so, it would be helpful if, through education, forest and wood can be positioned as an important part of the culture, where wood is seen as a precious resource for the country’s development and existence.

Wood is not only a biomaterial; it stores carbon in buildings and furniture, and it is biodegradable, renewable and recyclable. It is a durable, lightweight, high-resistant isolating material, with high aesthetic and functional characteristics. Additionally, it is important to consider that wood is carbon captured from the atmosphere, and will help reduce and displace high carbon footprint materials like cement, steel, glass and aluminum.
Guyana has the potential to become a big player in the timber market, and it is not fully participating presently. To make forestry and wood business models successful, Guyana has to invest in improving forest governance, wood harvesting and processing technologies and develop research in wood property and uses. **In addition, areas such as wood treatment, forest business development services, harvesting and carpentry capacities for improving the quality, durability and standardization of local wood products and infrastructure, need to be explored.

Well-managed forest will provide important revenues, employment and environmental services for society in a sustainable manner in the future because forest and wood is a renewable resource. On the contrary, mining and oil industries are liquidating activities, that even if they were done in a responsible manner, with proper reclamation measures, and respecting environmental and social safeguards, they would not be as profitable and convenient as they are now. These extracting activities have a date of expiration, and it is important that the forest be there to continue producing benefits for the Guyanese society.
The first step: Strengthening of forest governance

Guyana is currently working with the European Union (EU) to promote legal use of forest and wood products, improving national policies to create clear rules and better conditions for developing a forest based business model that will create benefits to communities and the society in general. Guyana has already finished negotiations with the initialing of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the EU- a policy instrument of the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan, which the EU adopted in response to the global problem of illegal logging. At the present, Guyana and the EU are moving towards the ratification of the agreement in their respective parliaments, as well as working to implement agreed commitments before a FLEGT license can be issued.

This VPA aims to improve the application of forest laws, strengthen forest governance and promote trade in legal wood products between Guyana and the EU. The Guyana-EU VPA will enter into force after both sides would have approved it, triggering a period in which Guyana will develop a system for verifying the legality of its timber products and implement its other VPA commitments in order to issue a FLEGT license.

This agreement will promote the creation and development of forest businesses and value chains of sustainable forest products. Guyana has already made progress in a number of areas: it has created awareness for legality compliance in forest operators, it has also developed new forest regulations, code of good practices for forest management, including development of a legality assurance and traceability system in an inclusive and participatory way, and inter-agency coordination for reducing compliance costs. Most of Guyana’s forests are still intact but threatened by the expansion of agriculture and mining. The Guyana Forestry Commission is well organised and pro-active and with substantial field presence. It is important to understand that the VPA is only the means for the realization of the greater national goal.