Miners, foresters call for specific policy guidelines

… make commitment to work in ‘harmony’

Stakeholders in the mining and forestry sectors are calling on Government to set more specific policy guidelines that will hopefully help to address some of the conflicts encountered while mining on forest concessions, while both sides have also made a commitment to work together in ‘harmony.’
This was the outcome of a workshop that was held on Wednesday to look at the challenges of the ongoing conflict between these activities which have eluded prior attempts at finding suitable solutions. It is also one of the areas that pose a challenge for Guyana signing onto the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA).
The VPA is a legally binding trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and a timber-producing country outside the EU.

The purpose of a VPA is to ensure that timber and timber products exported to the EU come from legal sources. The agreements also help timber-exporting countries stop illegal logging. Guyana is still working to acquire acceptance in order to sign the VPA.
In delivering his presentation, Project Coordinator of the Forestry Producers’ Association (FPA), Khalawan (only name), admitted that there has been an overlapping of forest and mining concessions which has been an issue for many years. However, he said there must be some level of commitment to having this issue amicably resolved so that there is less conflict among the two sectors, and also for Guyana to sign the VPA.
Using the example of a creek, Khalawan said this is a natural boundary for many forestry concessions but many times miners change their course and end up beyond these boundaries, creating problem for foresters. “On one hand, the Forestry Commission is protecting the creek and the banks and on the other hand the miners are saying that’s our ground. So where does the law protect us or guides us?”
The FPA official said the mechanisation of mining and forestry creates an uneven playing field and unless there are strict guidelines to follow, then there will continue to have conflicts. Khalawan said in the past, miners and foresters would have constant fights over boundaries, but now that fight has moved to ‘who is right’. “But the policy does not differentiate in a way, who is right. It must be clear,” he asserted.
Another issue raised by the FPA is the fact that many foresters would pay substantial sums of money to build good roads to assist them with transporting logs but then these same roads are often used by miners, who may not have contributed to building or maintaining them. This poses a huge challenge for loggers, according to Khalawan, because it hinders them from properly utilising their infrastructure.
Meanwhile, a representative from the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA), William Woolford, said given there is a common labour pool among these two sectors that alone poses a challenge. More immortally however, Woolford said the land use policy will have to take course if the issues between miners and loggers are to be addressed in full.
Woolford, who has been a former Commissioner at the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) working in the area of regulation, told the workshop participants that there were few complaints that miners and foresters brought against each other in the past, but in recent times there has been calls for miners to operate in a way that brings environmental stringency that is in line with foresters.
The GGDMA official noted that there is not a well thought out collaboration between the foresters and miners. As such, there are no standing arrangements for FPA officials to meet with the GGDMA, officials from the GGMC to meet with staff from Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) on a regular basis to deal with issues that would arise from time to time in the areas where the two sectors operate.
At present, the National Development Strategy states that Guyana has no land use policy. The three commissions dealing with land, GGMC, GFC and Guyana Lands and Survey Commission (GLSC) administer lands for mining, forestry and agriculture respectively. With the absence of this policy, it creates a difficulty in the management of natural resources and reduces the incentives to implement sustainable land management codes of practices in the forestry sector.
While Guyana had committed to signing the VPA with the EU/FLEGT by the end of 2016, that deadline was pushed back to the end of 2017. This is the second time the timeline for signing the agreement has been pushed back.
The workshop was funded by FAO-EU FLEGT programme aimed at building awareness and capacity of the Private Sector operators to participate in the VPA process in Guyana.