Forestry standards could be ready by March
By Miranda La Rose
Stabroek News
January 4, 2005
Guyana's forest certification standards should be completed by March 2005, enabling the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to endorse them by June.
Sharon Ousman, National Co-ordinator of the Guyana National Initiative for Forest Certification (GNIFC) told stakeholders in the forest industry last week that the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) will also have a stake in the process by sanctioning the draft document before it gains FSC accreditation.
Speaking at a meeting on the way forward in the forest certification process, held in the boardroom of the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC), Kingston, Ousman noted that consultations on the draft standards began in February of this year, in various parts of the country.
The principles of the draft standards include compliance with laws and the FSC principles; tenure and land use rights and responsibilities; indigenous peoples' rights; community relations and workers' rights; benefits from the forests; environmental impact, management plan and monitoring and assessment.
According to Ousman the third draft is being finalised through a multi-stakeholder process and GNIFC, which is also assisted by the WWF, has been working with the FSC for technical advice on the standard-setting process.
With these standards, forest-harvesting companies will be able to work with set principles that would seek to encourage optimum use of the forest products while fostering attitudes of forest stewardship.
Ousman said some of the constraints arising out from the processes of certification are the issues of overlapping land use in terms of mining, forestry and agriculture; the lack of long-term tenure for State Forest Permit (SFP) holders to pursue certification, tenure conflicts with SFP holders and the limited time frame to adequately facilitate consultation according to the FSC.
Ousman said in the future the GNIFC would work towards providing market forums, linking producers and buyers for certified products; promoting forest certification in the local market environment and building capacity and awareness in forest management at all levels. GNIFC also hopes to develop and harmonise a regional standard for Guyana, Suriname and other Guiana Shield countries.
The GNIFC Coordinator said she would like to see more small forest producers gaining access to global initiatives that could be made available to them.
Daniel Arancibia, FSC's Regional Latin American Representative at the meeting said forest certification is a huge reward for the work of all those involved in the process. "Your standards are going to guide people," he said. "If Guyana is to be successful, then the country needs professionals who know how certification works." He said when a company has certification, it would have more negotiating power when making deals with buyers overseas.