Forest Bill sent to Special Select Committee
-given a deliberation period of two months

Georgetown, GINA, November 8, 2007

Government’s Forest Bill 2007 has been referred to a Special Select Committee (SSC) for further discussion and consideration. The announcement was made during today’s sitting of the National Assembly by Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud.
            “Mr. Speaker, I have heard and read several statements regarding the Bill. As such, on September 18th at a public forum I announced that in the interest of greater stakeholder involvement and contribution by members of the Assembly, the government intends to refer the Bill to a special select committee for consideration for no more than two months,” Minister Persaud said.
            Prior to the announcement in the House, the Agriculture Minister said the Bill seeks to ensure that Guyana’s forest sector continues to contribute to the sustainable development of Guyana and for the country to meet international obligations under the many conventions and treaties to which it is signatory.
            “Over the past decade or so, sustainable forest management and the need to ensure that forests are used in a manner to ensure economic, social and environmental best practices and implications for global climate stability and climate change, have taken priority status in local, regional and international arenas. These concepts are definitely not reflected in the existing outdated 1953 Forest Act and it was therefore essential that the legislation be revised thoroughly,” Minister Persaud asserted.
            Under Part 2 of the proposed Act, a State forest authorisation from the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) is necessary to carry-out activities such as entering State forests, taking forest produce or occupying land in State forests.
This can only be done if persons are exercising a right, power, duty, or privilege under any written law, or under Amerindian custom.
            Part 3 of the Act is aimed at protecting and conserving forests and provides for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to declare specially protected areas within State forests. It prohibits acts that could cause fires in State forests.
It also imposes on certain persons a duty to report and put out fires and allows the Minister to make an Order to protect any tree or plant species, declare any private land to be a forest conservation area, or apply any provision of this Act to private land.
            The proposed Act will regulate forest operations, other activities relating to forest produce and quality control of value-added forest produce. It provides for the Minister to adopt legally binding codes of practice that can be amended from time to time.
            If enacted, it will also ban the importation and conveyance of unlawfully obtained or exported forest produce and address under-pricing of forest produce for export.
            “A World Bank team has also reviewed the Forest Bill and stated that it represents a substantial improvement over the existing Act and is considered to be of high regional standard. It is also important to note, that the forest Bill 2007 is not meant in any way, to be a replacement of the draft of 2004; rather, it is a refinement, condensation, and reorganization of the 2004 draft making it a much more coherent and user friendly document,” Minister Persaud explained.
            In Guyana, approximately 76 percent of the total land area is forested and the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) is responsible for the management of 135,800 km square which is classified as the State Forest Estate.
The forestry sector over the years has played an important role in economic development recording 25,000 in direct employments, contributing four percent to GDP from primary products and generating US $60M from export of all products in 2006.

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