– loggers, residents relieved over decision

THE contracts legally binding the Ituni Small Loggers Association (ISLA) to the two new logging concessions that have been made available to them, are ready to sign and uplift, bringing great relief to the loggers of the association and residents on the whole. Its Secretary, Linden Duncan, told the Guyana Chronicle, on Thursday, that the two new concessions are welcomed by the association and will amalgamate the tags that were available to loggers from the current 11 concessions.

The association is currently in the process of completing its production register which will enable them to sign the contracts and access the concessions. One of these, he said, is easily accessible with the necessary infrastructure in place, while the other is in the Berbice division and the loggers would need guidance from the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) in accessing this 12, 500 acres of land. The other is 9, 933 acres.

While associations are allowed only one concession, the GFC’s technical committee took into consideration the good stewardship demonstrated by ISLA, fully utilising existing areas, also that the community completely depends on logging as its sole economic activity and that the membership of the association is growing and is much bigger than other small associations.

Duncan said that the atmosphere in the community is not as tense and persons have also realised that the issues of tags being exhausted earlier than expected was not any fault of the government, but on them not honouring their responsibility to submit the production register. “The two new concessions were favourably received by the loggers, the atmosphere is not as tense, persons have been told what has been required of us in terms of getting tags,” Duncan said. Next week, the association will hold its statutory meeting, where decisions on the way forward will be made.

Community Development Officer, Keisha Griffith said, “Ituni residents would have understood that the situation we were in is not only the government’s fault, but we had some part to play in it and we have a lot of fixing to do on the ground to get things back to normal. However, we are grateful because they would have been asking for lands for so long and now they got through with it and we know that when business starts back doing and operation starts again, they won’t have any problem,” she said.
Last month, some loggers protested for the government’s intervention as their tags were exhausted, hence, there were no work for them, thus they were unable to provide for themselves and families. Minister Trotman and a high-level team subsequently met with the representatives of the Association and they were given an opportunity to explain their plight; hence an amicable solution in providing them with two more concessions was brought to the fore. Minister Trotman, on November 10th, visited the community and relayed this news to them.