REGION 10 (Upper Demerara/ Berbice) Agriculture and Forestry Producers Association consultant, Mr. Phillip Bynoe, has issued a public challenge to the Kaieteur News to debate the increasingly contentious issue of Chinese logging company, Bai Shan Lin (BSL).

BSL has been targeted by Kaieteur News for the last few weeks. However, while aspersions continue to be hurled about, Commissioner of the Guyana Forest Commission (GFC), James Singh, has since defended the legitimacy of the Chinese logging company’s operations and outlined the conditions under which BSL received joint ventures for 274,000 hectares of forest and refuted claims of wrongdoings by the GFC, the forestry sector’s oversight body.
In an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Bynoe said, “If Kaieteur News has any balls they will accept my challenge to both their publisher and, or, their best reporters, to meet with me in a public debate to address the issue of the Chinese investment.”

According to him, the bottom line of the entire debacle is that “politicians deal with politics” and the “small man” deserves more, since it is their bottom line that is being affected.

Bynoe said that last Tuesday hundreds of forestry sector stakeholders gathered at the Umana Yana, under one voice, in their numbers, to defend their position and express their concerns with the anti-investment stance taken by the local daily.

“The Kaieteur News has claimed that those persons were paid, which is a lie. We do not have to bribe people. People in the logging industry have struggled for many years and they know how to represent their interests. The people who were at that session are serious people who know what they are about,” he said.

The consultant added that coming out of that meeting was the establishment of two committees that are expected to significantly advance the interest of persons from Region 10 who are involved in the forestry sector.

He said, “A committee called the Linden/ Kwakwani Road Users Association, which was set up on Tuesday, is currently doing an assessment of the road needs, including the internal and major roads.
“Also coming out of Tuesday’s meeting was the establishment of the Region 10 Forest Producers, Marketing and Development Council, which will be responsible for marketing timber through one central agency.”

Bynoe explained too that the Region 10 Forest Producers, Marketing and Development Council is expected to be influential in securing better prices, among other benefits, for persons from Region 10 who are involved in the forestry sector.
“That meeting sought to advance and address the interest of the people of Linden,” he declared.

Tuesday’s session was a public meeting of loggers drawn from ten major organisations in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice), among them the Maria Elizabeth Three Friends Small Loggers Association; the Coomacka Forest Producers and Agricultural Association; the Linden Agriculture & Forest Producers Association; the Blueberry Hill Small Loggers Association; the Ituni Natural Resources Organisation; the Kwakwani Natural Resources Organisation; the Rockstone Small Loggers Association; the Region No. 10 AFPA; the Upper Berbice Forest Producers Association; MAC Enterprise; and the Araima Natural Resource Organisation.

“The Kaieteur News is telling lie after lie, which they cannot substantiate. They are digging a deeper hole…if they truly are a patriotic newspaper and their mission is truly an altruistic one, in the interest of Guyana and Guyanese, they will stop telling lies that damage the lives of the small man on the ground,” he concluded.