{"id":30097,"date":"2026-05-25T19:21:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T23:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/?p=30097"},"modified":"2026-05-25T19:21:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T23:21:48","slug":"60-years-later-the-growth-of-guyanas-forestry-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/60-years-later-the-growth-of-guyanas-forestry-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"60 years later; The growth of Guyana’s forestry sector"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n\n

-Pres. Ali lays out vision for small & medium operators<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-by Jarryl Bryan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many\u00a0stories of Guyana’s\u00a0transformation over\u00a0the 60 years of\u00a0independence\u00a0and one such\u00a0story is how\u00a0much Guyana’s\u00a0forestry sector\u00a0has grown, from the troubles the sector found itself in just a few years ago, to the resurgence\u00a0of small and medium-scaled forestry operators and entrepreneurs.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Guyana’s forestry industry comfortably walks the fine line between conservation and\u00a0sustainable livelihoods.\u00a0Guyana’s 85% forest cover is one of the highest forest cover percentages for any country on\u00a0earth.\u00a0But at the same time, the forest provides business opportunities for many industries,\u00a0including downstream ones like furniture makers and prefabricated houses. It wasn’t always that way, however.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a recent press conference, President Dr. Irfan Ali recalled a few years ago when\u00a0many forest operators fell on hard times.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The forestry sector couldn’t even pay their salaries anymore.When we came back, we had to pay months of outstanding salaries for the Guyana Forestry\u00a0Commission.\u00a0We had a meeting with all the small-scale foresters.\u00a0And you know what the small-scale foresters and medium-scale foresters told us?\u00a0Let us get back the large players. It’s a different industry now<\/em><\/strong>,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n

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President Dr. Mohammed Irfaan Ali<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The small and medium-sized enterprises have returned, coaxed by a favorable investment\u00a0climate and policies that encourage value-added production.\u00a0President Ali says the focus must now be on these small and medium-scale operators partnering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We in the future can say that we want all our companies -this is why the Junior Stock\u00a0Exchange and so will help us- that we want our medium-sized miners to come together\u00a0in a consortium and benefit from the large-scale opportunity and say let us see how we can\u00a0do our own mineral mapping from a national level so we know where our assets are and\u00a0we can direct more of those opportunities to these consortiums and larger operators\u00a0in Guyana<\/em><\/strong>,” he explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guyana’s forest sector churns out logs, sawn wood, roundwood and greenheart, all highly\u00a0sought after on the market.\u00a0Last year, timber production almost reached 500,000 cubic meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guyana also signed a voluntary partnership agreement with the European Union in 2022,\u00a0continuing the country’s legacy of sustainable forest management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

-Pres. Ali lays out vision for small & medium operators -by Jarryl Bryan There are many\u00a0stories of Guyana’s\u00a0transformation over\u00a0the 60 years of\u00a0independence\u00a0and one such\u00a0story is how\u00a0much Guyana’s\u00a0forestry sector\u00a0has grown, from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[361,360,363,350,474],"tags":[488,370,852,429,412,405],"class_list":["post-30097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-and-economy","category-energy","category-national-transformation","category-news","category-private-sector","tag-488","tag-guyana","tag-guyana-at-60","tag-ministry-of-natural-resources","tag-ncn-guyana","tag-ncn-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30099,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30097\/revisions\/30099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}