Gov’t to press case to lift UK’s ban on greenheart from Guyana

– Trotman

Fearing dire repercussions for Guyana’s lumber sector from the United Kingdom’s restriction on greenheart timber imports, Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman says government is putting plans in place to have representatives travel to the UK next year to “press our case.”

“This is a matter of serious concern. Suffice to say that Cabinet has been apprised and several ministers and ministries have been working assiduously on the matter … greenheart is literally at the heart and soul of Guyana’s timber industry,” Trotman told reporters on Friday at a press conference.

Trotman said that government is currently very interested in restoring the smooth trade and towards this end it has been in communication with the local British High Commission.

He added that next year a delegation will travel to the UK to press Guyana’s case for the removal of the ban.

In May last year, a technical note released by the UK’s Environmental Agency to contractors for government-funded projects, among others, stating that it will apply the timber agreement policy rigorously and will only buy timber from legal and sustainable sources, which currently prohibits purchase of new greenheart from Guyana.

Government is worried that other countries could piggyback on the UK’s stance and also institute a ban on imports from Guyana.

“We have a reputation to protect and we have to ensure that those who produce logs for use in marine construction, wharves and so forth, and for lumber, that we give them what they desire and that is markets in the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom. Our concern, of course, is that this ban, if left, could see its way like a virus spreading itself into the Europe and elsewhere. We are working with the EU and the EU forest law governance system. So, for us this is a national issue and it will receive a national response,” Trotman stated.

He believes that the cause of the ban could not be limited to a single issue but it was a combination or culmination of many events, including the sense that our forests were being mismanaged.

“I believe it may have had some critical aspects tending to it, and of course, there is also international lobbying by other countries that produce, not greenheart but another species that could be used for the same applications. It is a combination of us being outmanoeuvred.

“The ban came, quite coincidently, in May last year when relations with Great Britain and Guyana were at an all-time low,” he noted.