Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
This article was downloaded by: [University of Illinois Chicago]On: 17 October 2014, At: 08:43Publisher: Taylor & FrancisInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of Sustainable ForestryPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjsf20
Forest Grabbing Through ForestConcession Practices: The Case ofGuyanaJanette Bulkana
a Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry,Forest Sciences Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver,British Columbia, CanadaAccepted author version posted online: 14 Mar 2014.Publishedonline: 25 Apr 2014.
To cite this article: Janette Bulkan (2014) Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices: TheCase of Guyana, Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 33:4, 407-434, DOI: 10.1080/10549811.2014.899502
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10549811.2014.899502
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 33:407–434, 2014Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1054-9811 print/1540-756X onlineDOI: 10.1080/10549811.2014.899502
Forest Grabbing Through Forest ConcessionPractices: The Case of Guyana
JANETTE BULKANDepartment of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry, Forest Sciences Centre,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Colonial governments asserted sovereignty and property rightsgradually over the territory of Guyana, disregarding preexistingIndigenous Rights. Although a Forest Department modeled on theIndian Forest Service was established, there was no equivalent set-tlement process to determine the rights of forest peoples. State Forestarea is declared by administrative fiat. These two elements haveenabled State-endorsed forestland grabbing. Logging was scatteredand selective until the early 1980s. A neoliberal economic programfrom the 1980s has allowed Asian companies to gain control over atleast 80% of large-scale forestry concessions, equivalent to one-thirdof the 15.8 million hectares (Mha) of State-administered publicforests. The relative success of the Asian companies can be under-stood in terms of available capital, willingness to invest, knowledgeof markets, and willingness to corrupt. The relative failure ofthe preexisting Guyanese-owned businesses can be understood interms of lack of capital, inability to save and unwillingness toinvest, lack of knowledge of marketing, and lack of cooperationwithin the sector. Some conclusions from the Guyana story are rel-evant to other countries related to resource-hungry transnationalenterprises.
KEYWORDS Guyana, forest concessions, land grab, Asianloggers, tropical rainforest
Address correspondence to Janette Bulkan, Department of Forest Resources Management,Faculty of Forestry, Forest Sciences Centre, University of British Columbia, 2021–2424 MainMall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4. E-mail: [email protected]
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/wjsf.
407
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
408 J. Bulkan
LAND GRABBING
By 2008, the term “land grab” was in common use to denote “a surge in(trans)national commercial land deals leading to (or threatening) a mas-sive enclosure of remaining ‘non-private’ lands and to dispossession of ruralpoor” in global South countries (Borras & Franco, 2012, p. 37). In an effort toneutralize the discursive potency of the term “land grab,” investors and gov-ernments engaged in land deals countered with normative formulations—“reserve agricultural land,” for example—and stressed the expected contri-butions to increased and efficient production of food and fuel for local andglobal benefits (Deininger, 2011).
The Marxist theory of “accumulation by dispossession” provides a frame-work for understanding this latest wave of global expansion (Harvey, 2003).The capitalist mode of production requires expansion in order to survive,leading to periodic crises of overaccumulation which then needs new outlets.As Harvey (2003) explained,
overaccumulation . . . is a condition where surpluses of capital (perhapsaccompanied by surpluses of labour) lie idle with no profitable outlets insight. . . . If those assets, such as empty land or new raw material sources,do not lie to hand, then capitalism must somehow produce them. (p. 143)
Harvey (2003) noted the linkages on the one hand, between thedevelopment of an international financial system and free trade; and onthe other hand, the rise of neoliberal theory and its associated politics ofprivatization. Operating in the global capitalist system, Asian loggers fromthe 1970s, and the Chinese State via its state-owned enterprises from the1990s, also needed outlets for their “chronic problems of overaccumulation(of both capital and labor) [which they achieved through] the opening up ofnew territories . . . the effect was to make a new round of ‘enclosure of thecommons’” (p. 158).
Harvey (2003) further pointed out that:
what accumulation by dispossession does is to release a set of assets atvery low . . . cost. Overaccumulated capital can seize hold of such assetsand immediately turn them to profitable use. In the case of primitiveaccumulation . . . this entailed taking land, say, enclosing it . . . and thenreleasing the land into the privatized mainstream of capital accumulation.(p. 149)
Beginning in 1991, Asian loggers have accumulated almost 80% of large-scale, long-term forest concessions in Guyana, equivalent to one-third of the15.8 million hectares (Mha) of public forests. The Asian forestland grabshave also secured for the grabbers a low-cost source of logs for processing
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 409
in Asian factories, an outlet for surplus Chinese labor and a tangible goodthat can be converted into financial capital.
Territorialization of State Power
The term “political forest” refers to “lands that states declared as forestsand put under the control of state forestry services. . . . This term is meantto emphasise that ‘forests’ are products of political as well as ecologicalprocesses” (Vandergeest & Peluso, 2006, p. 33). “Political forests” enablethe territorialization of State power, which “mean[s] the spatial expressionof power relations in general and the more specific expression of prop-erty rights and their administration in the delineation of particular spaces”(Prudham and Coleman, 2011, p. 13). The role of the State in these casesis equivalent to that of a corporate private property holder. As the propertyspecialist, Macpherson (2011), explains,
State property, then, is not common property as we have defined it: stateproperty is not an individual right not to be excluded. It is a corporateright to exclude. As a corporate right to exclude others it fits the definitionof (corporate) private property . . . State property is an exclusive right ofan artificial person. (pp. 5–6)
The State, Macpherson points out, is embodied in “the persons who areacknowledged by the citizens to have the right to command them” (p. 6).That embodied State in turn can allocate State property, including forestlands,and then guarantee or enforce the rights of the licence holders. Only thePresident of Guyana as Minister of Forests is authorized to issue large-scale,long-term forest concessions.
Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, and Russian companies now extracting tim-ber, bauxite, diamonds, and gold from Guyana may not be conscious ofthe half-millennium history but they are the most recent and most commer-cially successful of nonnative grabbers of the natural wealth of the country,enabled by the State. This article lays out the procedures and practices thathave enabled forestland grabbing by Asian loggers and the commensurateweakening of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, andall Guyanese, to those lands.
METHODOLOGY
This article is based on fieldwork from 2006–2007, and over month-longperiods annually during 2008–2013, that included participant observation,including “critical advocacy research” as a way to draw out official responses(Pellow, 2007, p. 35), semi-structured interviews with a wide range of
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
410 J. Bulkan
informants, and archival research. Many of my sources cannot be attributedbecause of the threat of State victimization. Field information was trian-gulated from available or leaked consultancy reports, international tradefigures, and the Initial Public Offerings (IPO) of Samling and other Asianloggers. IPO prospectuses are required by the Hong Kong stock exchangeand made available information that was never in the public domain inGuyana.
SOVEREIGNTY AND STATE PROPERTY
The absence of a national indigenous polity at the onset of European contactfrom the early 1600s facilitated the establishment of independent tradingposts on the Guyana coast by the Dutch for products from the natural trop-ical rainforest. A charter issued by the States-General of the Republic of theUnited Netherlands to the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in 1621 forthe Essequibo colony consolidated those posts. In turn, the WIC issued a“Charter of Privileges and Exemptions” in 1629 to Abraham van Pere for thecolony of Berbice in what is now eastern Guyana. The 1629 charter recog-nized explicitly that the indigenous inhabitants had property rights as well assome rights of sovereignty, in the requirement that Dutch colonists were tomake purchases of land from the original inhabitants whenever it was politicto do so. However, “there are no records of them having purchased any ofthis land from the original occupants or of entering into any Treaties (otherthan Treaties of Friendship) with them” (Bulkan, 2008, pp. 164–165).
The Dutch gradually asserted sovereignty although in the absenceof external threats from landward, they felt no pressure to demarcateborders and formally declare sovereignty over the enclosed area. TheBatavian Republic in The Netherlands ceded the three colonies of Essequibo,Demerara, and Berbice to Great Britain in 1803, the cession confirmed bythe Convention of London in 1814 but without specific country boundaries.That cession by the Dutch to the British changed the informal assumption ofsovereignty over Guiana into formal acquisition by the articles of capitulationand the confirming treaty 11 yr later. From the point of view of Europeanpowers, this regularized the sovereignty even without formal definition ofboundaries. Thus European sovereignty over British Guiana was attained bya gradual process of accommodation during colonial rule. That sovereigntywas not acquired from the indigenous Amerindians by any of the four con-ventional processes: right of conquest, right of discovery (for terra nullius),right from cession through treaty (Weaver, 2006, p. 135), or by papal bull.“Instead, the colonial state had stealthily assimilated the Amerindians as itssubjects and the claimed frontiers against other colonial states, on the basisof extending the protections of British law and order over them” (Colchester,1997, p. 129).
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 411
Land Property Rights
Formal property rights created under Roman-Dutch land law were unaffectedby the cession to Great Britain in 1803, and land law in Guyana is a prag-matic mixture of that law and English law (Ramsahoye, 1966). All land whichhas not been formally alienated into private ownership has been treatedas government-administered Crown Land (until Independence in 1966) andthen as State Land. This assumption of government administration on behalfof the citizens collectively dates back to the WIC charter and appears tobe rooted in an assumed right of Eminent Domain generated by the sus-tained trading pattern with the United Provinces of The Netherlands (Seed,1995). No attempt was made to inform the indigenous Amerindians of thisassumption of legally superior control of natural resources.
Amerindian Detachment from the Legal Processes
Field visits were made by the Amerindian Lands Commission during1967–1969, immediately after Independence, to determine for most of thethen identified and accessible 128 Amerindian communities what shouldbe the areas allocated to them and under what kind of legal tenure, asrequired by the terms of the 1965 Independence Agreement (Menezes, 1988,pp. 361–362). The Amerindians repeatedly expressed surprise that they didnot have complete control and ownership of their traditional lands and cus-tomary usufruct: “A belief exists among Amerindians that they own landswithin areas they refer to as Reservations whether these lands were declaredreservations or not” (Government of Guyana, 1969, p. 47). This belief hasbeen sustained notwithstanding the erosion of their rights through the CrownLands and Mining Ordinances during the previous hundred years. Theyrepeated their surprise during the field consultations during 2003, prior tothe revision of the Amerindian Act in 2006 (Bulkan, 2008).
During four High Court cases in 2009–2013 against gold miners (inor near the communities of Arau, Chinese Landing, Isseneru, and Kako),Amerindians have reiterated their belief that they have undiminishedIndigenous Title to their traditional and customary lands, although they arelargely unfamiliar with the legal terminology and the exact legal extent oftheir statutory and customary rights (“Amerindians Protest,” 2013).
Reservation and De-Reservation of Indigenous Areas in Relation toAlluvial Mining
A series of Creeks and Rivers/Crown Lands Ordinances from 1838 onwardmade reference to undefined Amerindian traditional rights. These were listedmost fully in the Regulations to Crown Lands Ordinance number 12 in1871 but were not formally defined. Some of the traditional rights have been
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
412 J. Bulkan
carried over into laws and regulations for State Lands and Mining. Rushes foralluvial gold and diamonds from the 1840s led to the creation of reservationsfor the Amerindians through the Aboriginal Indians Protection Ordinance1902, revised in 1910. Isolating the declining remnants of the AmerindianNations in reserves was partly to separate them from the aggressive minersand was partly a reward for the support given to the British arguments againstVenezuela in the 1890s during the boundary dispute. The reserves did notprovide formal communal title until the 1976 revision of the Amerindian Actwhen 65 communities were granted Amerindian Village Lands with definedborders (Government of Guyana, 1976).
Creeping Acquisition of Woodcutting Licenses and Agricultural LeasesOver the Indigenous Hinterland
The WIC charter allowed the colony governments to raise taxes, issue leasesand grants to land, and usufruct licences; including to extract timber. Fromas early as the 1740s in Berbice, there were requirements for licensing oftree felling and timber and firewood exports (Swabey, 1950). Amerindianconcern about land grants and woodcutting leases were voiced at least from1827 when the Akawaio asked for “the guarantee in future of their right tothe occupancy of the soil of their Ancestors” as well as compensation forAmerindian lands leased to non-Amerindians (Menezes, 1988, p. 355, end-note 4). In 1831 Governor D’Urban protested that the Government had notdispossessed Amerindians of their territory (Menezes, 1988, p. 356, endnote6). However, 6 yr later in 1837, Hillhouse, former Quartermaster-General,objected to the leasing of Amerindian lands to private persons by the Sheriffof Berbice as “one of the most barefaced aggressions on the rights of theAboriginals . . . that has ever been heard of” (Menezes, 1988, p. 356, end-note 9). Governor Light in 1838 and Dr. Hancock in 1842 confirmed that“the Indians themselves [were] the only rightful possessors of the soil ofthese regions” (Menezes, 1988, p. 357, endnotes 10 and 13).
Declaration of State Forests
Concerns were raised over a long period about the poorly controlledexploitation of the natural tropical rainforest and its treatment as little morethan a revenue stream for the plantocracy that controlled decisions on thecolony’s finances in the Court of Policy. The Crown Lands Ordinance num-ber 14 (1861) allowed land grants in areas of natural forest in tracts ofat least 40 ha. A decade later, Ordinance number 12 (1871) provided forrental of woodcutting leases for periods of 5 yr and covering 120–400 ha(Benjamin & Pierre, 1995) but not requiring royalty payments; so the colonyobtained at least some revenue from the then booming trade in logs andpiles of greenheart timber (Chlorocardium rodiei) for use in civil and
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 413
marine construction in Europe. Royalties on timber were introduced in theRegulations on woodcutting in 1890 but there was no management as such.Under pressure from Harrison, the Government Agronomist, the Departmentof Lands and Mines (DLM) created a forest unit in 1910, primarily forbotanical studies and forest valuation (strip surveys).
The poor quality of timber exports from British Guiana and the lackof investment in sustainable forest management by the DLM led to the cre-ation of the national forest service, the Forest Department (FD), in 1925 bysecondment of experienced staff from the Indian Forest Service (IFS) andabsorption of most functions from the DLM. However, not until 1953 wasit possible to revise the Mining and Crown Lands Acts and promulgate theForests Act to wrest the revenue functions away from the DLM (Bulkan &Palmer, 2009).
In contrast to other British Dominion and colonial territories, BritishGuiana was peculiar in that the new forest law made no provision for a set-tlement process. In the parent IFS, there had been since the 1870s a formalprocess for identifying and reserving areas under permanent protection forproduction of a variety of forest products or environmental services (Troup,1940, pp. 117–134). The reservation process included often-prolonged field-work in most colonial territories along the proposed boundary, to registerclaims of adjacent communities to customary rights and ownership, and notethe populations and farmlands within the proposed boundary, which wereto be resettled outside the boundary. Where possible, the settlement officerswere to buy out and extinguish the rights, or to define them precisely so thatthey could be monitored and not extended.
No such settlement process was defined for Guyana, even though theFD staff had ample opportunity to learn the nature and extent of Amerindiantraditional occupation and usufruct during 1925–1953. Instead, the ForestsAct 1953/1997 allows the responsible Minister to declare by legal Orderor Proclamation that a bounded area of Crown Land shall be State Forest,excluding only named Village Districts and freehold titled land within thatboundary. The Forests Act makes no provision for public consultation priorto the Order, nor for appeal after the declaration of the Order. Amerindianland under communal titles issued from 1976 is private land under theState Lands Act 1903/1997 and so is excluded from State Forest. However,Amerindian customary land, which is not under statutory communal title,can be and mostly is swept up into State Forests. Amerindian communitiesgenerally do not know this, because the legal Proclamations and Orders fordeclaration of State Forest are not easily accessible, and most communitiesdo not have community offices, let alone filing systems (Bulkan, 2013).
Article 37 in the Forests Act (Guyana Forestry Commission, 1953/1997)saves undefined Amerindian rights. The provision for formal statement ofthose rights by the Minister was never used, and was extinguished in the revi-sion of the Amerindian Act in 2006 (Government of Guyana, 2006; second
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
414 J. Bulkan
schedule). The contents of Article 37 were carried over into the revision ofthe Forests Act which was in public consultation during 1996–2004. This draftrevision was abandoned after 2004 and the Forests Act that was passed by theNational Assembly (Parliament) in 2009 (Guyana Forestry Commission, 2009)contains a much more restrictive and poorly defined provision—Section 5(2)(e)—for Amerindian rights. (The Forest Act 2009 is not operable law asthe Minister has not yet issued a Commencement Order.)
Protection is also afforded in the procedural manual 1999 for State ForestExploratory Permits (SFEPs) by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC,1997), which states that:
Particular attention will be given to any Amerindian community in thevicinity and to land that is used or traversed by Amerindian peoples.An exploratory permit will not be issued for any area that is occupied,claimed or used by Amerindians. (Appendix 1)
As noted below, the GFC appears in practice to ignore this safeguard.
State Forests from 1953 to 1997
The schedule attached to the Forests Act 1953 defined three areas of CrownLands to be State Forest, totaling 7.7 Mha (Vieira & Richardson, 1957).Another 1.4 Mha were converted by Ministerial Order from State Lands toState Forests, in two tranches in 1969; the Orders are no longer accessible.After the surprise concession of 1.65 Mha to Barama in 1991, see below,and the 3-yr moratorium on the issue of new large-scale, long-term indus-trial logging licenses (Colchester, 1997) during 1994–1997, the Minister issuedan Order in 1997 extending the State Forests south to the Brazilian borderby 4.6 Mha and increasing the total State Forest area to 13.7 Mha, or two-thirds of the national territory. The declared intention at that time was forthe southern forest to be conserved for biodiversity and habitat conservation(“President Signs Order,” 2007). Even at that time, Malaysian transnationalloggers were still negotiating for concessions.
STATE TERRITORIALIZATION THROUGH FOREST CONCESSIONS
Rationale for Large Forest Concessions
In spite of Guyana having over 1,000 species of trees (ter Steege, 2000),logging and log trading have concentrated on a very small number ofhard, heavy, and decay-resistant timbers which are preferred for civil andmarine construction. The preferred commercial timbers, the iconic green-heart and purpleheart (Peltogyne venosa), grow typically in clumps—locallycalled “reefs”—on well-defined combinations of slope, soil texture, and soilcolor. This clumping or clustering facilitates cut-and-run logging, leading
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 415
to localized and then generalized extinction of commercially preferredspecies.
The large-scale, long-term model of forest concession gained groundfrom the 1960s when the thinking was that the capital investment required forsustainable forest harvesting and processing of commercial timbers requiredlarge areas to defray the investment and operational costs when overall profitmargins were small (Grayum, 1971). The Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) provided technical advice and support for two major projects inGuyana: a soil survey project under the Ministry of Agriculture (Gross-Braun,Derting, & Suggett, 1965) and the Forest Industry Development Survey (FIDS;Grayum, 1971). FIDS was United Nations Development Programme-SpecialFund (UNDP-SF) financed and FAO executed. At the time, the FAO promotedthe notion of forests as producers of raw material for value-addition throughurban-based domestic processing (Westoby, 1962). Guyana was late to adoptmechanization for logging but became an exemplar of how a complex nat-ural tropical rainforest could be managed systematically, if large enoughareas were allocated as long-term logging concessions to private enterprises(Vieira, 1980). Concessions were to be sized to feed sustainably the associ-ated sawmills and other processing plants, and to be long enough in durationto recoup the high costs of heavy equipment to extract the huge logs fromnatural forest with a low frequency of commercial tree species per unit area(Grayum, 1971).
Until 1973 all logging was carried out under short-term licences in anestimated 0.9 Mha of State Forests (Schmithusen, 1977, p. 124), with logsprincipally processed into lumber for domestic construction and sale to theCaribbean. There was a small historical trade to Europe in railway ties andgreenheart baulks for marine piling and civil construction. A rentier systemprevalent in forestry and mining concessions from the colonial period wasin place, with the oral contract terms for extracting logs or minerals set bythe absentee landlord.
From the early 1970s, the socialist Government concentrated its effortson setting up and managing Demerara Woods Ltd., a 500,000-ha forest con-cession (in a FIDS-surveyed-and-inventoried area) and mill. Demerara Woodswas intended to be a pilot for an eventual socialist-run forest industry. Thegovernment had also acquired the 355,000-ha ex-CDC concession, renamedGuyana Timbers, in 1973. The award of new, or renewal of, forestry conces-sions increasingly hinged on political party loyalty (Colchester, 1997, p. 101).State controls were also instituted over wood export sales through the TimberExport Board set up in 1974.
Issue of Large-Scale, Long-Term Logging Concessions
At last implementing the 1971 FIDS recommendations, the Governmentamended the Forest Regulations in 1982 to provide for the issue of
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
416 J. Bulkan
the large-scale and long-term logging concessions called Timber SalesAgreements (TSAs). TSAs were to be:
● granted for up to 25 yr over areas greater than 40,470 ha, with an optionfor renewal;
● issued on Presidential authority as the Minister of Forests;● exclusive to the concession holder;● available only to applicants “with proven ability in forest management and
in forest products processing and marketing”;● organized through the development and application of forest management
plans and annual operational plans.
A TSA holder would not be allowed to acquire extra forest until proofwas furnished that (s)he could work a concession at maximum sustainableyield. For TSAs, boundaries had to be demarcated on the ground, inventoriesundertaken, and environmental safeguards observed (GFC, 1993).
During the siege economy of the late 1970s and early 1980s, thesix dominant family-owned forestry enterprises (five ethnically East Indianand one Portuguese) survived by making accommodations with the rulingPeoples National Congress political Party. Nine TSAs were issued to these sixfamily enterprises in 1985, each of 15-yr duration, granting exclusive loggingaccess to a total of 830,000 ha (Figure 1). In 1985, area fees were imposedon all forest harvesting permits for the first time. Despite area fees beingamong the lowest in the world, and TSA fees being lower than the rateslevied on the two other types of shorter term concession licenses (Thomson,1994; Palmer, 1996), TSA holders successfully resisted having to pay to guar-antee exclusive access for logging. Political cronyism ensured that the big
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
Chinese Indian Malaysian Guyanese Other
nationalities
Th
ou
sa
nd
s o
f h
ecta
re
s
TSAs + WCLs 1985 New TSAs + WCLSs 1989–1990
New TSAs + WCLs 1991–1993 SFEPs 1998–2005
New TSAs + WCLs 1997–2005 All SFEPs in 2013
All TSAs + WCLs in 2013
FIGURE 1 Nationality of operators of logging concessions, 1985–2013, areas in ‘000 hectares.Line totals summed across 1985–2005 may exceed current values in 2013 because ofconcessions reduced or rescinded in 2005–2013.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 417
loggers were not penalized for their habitual failures to pay area fees, or topay on schedule (GFC, 2005a). Similarly, the terms and conditions set out forTSAs to conduct sustainable forest management were in practice disregarded(Overseas Development Administration [ODA], 1994).
Structural Adjustment Programme and the Entry of Asian Loggers(1989–1991)
The commitment to large concessions for logging was congruent withthe stringent Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) supervised by theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) that rescued the macroeconomy fromcomplete collapse in the late 1980s. Conditions included the divestment ofthe nationalized industries and the opening of the economy to inward invest-ment. The SAP included forest policy reform, and advocated a greater role formultinational investment in the natural resources sector, including forestry,as government-run businesses had been so disastrous.
As part of its economic restructuring, the Government developedan Investment Code as part of the enabling legislation for ForeignDirect Investment (FDI). Unfortunately, the Investment Code (1989) wasnot based on OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment) or similar international guidelines for multinational enter-prises, nor accompanied by detailed regulations. Several different kinds ofincentives were offered for FDI but with weak or no details of criteria for eli-gibility or trade-offs. Much was left undefined, in practice leading to lack oftransparency in negotiation, at least the suspicion of corruption, and someextraordinary one-sided deals in favor of the foreign investor (Colchester,1997). FDI contracts were negotiated by the Cabinet, not by the statu-tory State agencies—GUYMIDA or the Guyana Natural Resources Agency(GNRA)—with little or no oversight by the rarely sitting Parliament or bythe weak and disorganized civil society. A decade later, the U.S. Embassynoted that “the government is currently working on the development of aninvestment code, which is badly needed to facilitate investment and growth”(United States Embassy Guyana, 1999, p. 4).
Either the IMF paid no attention to the fact that the Guyana Governmentlacked the skilled technical personnel required to negotiate with externalinvestors, or advice from the international finance institutions was ignored(Benn & Hall, 2000; Seymour & Dubash, 2000). In a context where polit-ical loyalty rather than competence characterized Government negotiators,it was not surprising that State-owned, loss-making logging enterprises andsawmills were sold at knock-down prices by inexperienced and/or corruptGovernment officers, without external valuation or due diligence. Foreigninvestors were stimulated by the “give-away” sale by the Governmentof the 355,000-ha Guyana Timbers, Ltd. concession to the Colonial LifeInsurance Co. of Trinidad (CLICO) for the low price of US$2.7 million in1989 (Colchester, 1997, p. 100).
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
418 J. Bulkan
Guyana’s vague Investment Code attracted Asian loggers—SolidTimbers, Berjaya, Rimbunan Hijau (a co-owner of Demerara Timbers bythe mid-1990s), Samling, and others—who were beginning to look tonontraditional source countries, and finding that weak governance and weakeconomies often were found together. These loggers had surplus capitaland needed access to new forestlands. By 1991, Malaysian Chinese log-gers were taking full advantage of the neoliberal push to open up Stateforestlands.
In 1991, the Government issued seven new TSAs totaling 2.6 Mhaby administrative decision, a combination of transferring the remainingGovernment-run concession and opening up new forestlands in the north-west. Three large Malaysian loggers received 2.3 Mha (83% by area) ofthe new concessions awarded: Samling, incorporated locally as “BaramaCompany Limited” (Barama), was awarded 1.7 Mha (59%); Prime Group(“Demerara Timbers”) was granted the former Demerara Woods concessiontotaling 0.5 Mha (19%); and Berjaya (“Unamco”) received 0.1 Mha (5%). Theawards doubled the forest area allotted to large-scale concessions, and mighthave contributed to the financing of the ruling party’s electoral campaign,then in progress.
The deals continued the tradition of issuing large-scale concessions inforestry without reference to published criteria, solely on the basis of Statepatronage and cronyism, but on a much-expanded scale and to nonnationals.The terms of FDI arrangements were not then or now in the public domain,remaining a closely guarded secret. In addition, even if concession size weretied to (promises of) downstream processing in Guyana, there were eitherno performance clauses included in the contracts, or no penalties enforcedfor noncompliance (Bulkan & Palmer, 2008).
Barama Company Limited (Subsidiary of Samling Corporation Sdn.Bhd. in 1991, Now Samling Global, Inc.)
The only FDI agreement that has ever been leaked was that of the con-sortium, Barama, formed by the Malaysian logger Samling and the Koreanindustrial enterprise Sunkyong. That FDI agreement (Colchester, 1997,p. 102) was written in Malaysian English, suggesting that it was written bySamling. The main elements of the deal negotiated by Barama in February1991 included:
● exclusive harvesting rights over 1.7 Mha for 25 yr, renewable for a further25 yr on the same terms if the company has complied with “material obli-gations.” The 1.7 Mha was reduced in June 2004 to 1.6 Mha by excisionof 60,000 ha for the already titled Amerindian Village Lands which shouldnot have been included in the concession.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 419
● right to rent out all or part of the licence area to third parties, subject toGovernment approval.
● right to develop mills and other infrastructure inside or outside the licencearea, and to acquire or lease land free of central government propertytaxes.
● comprehensive exemptions for two successive 5-yr periods from mostkinds of taxes and all import duties on all equipment, machinery, construc-tion materials, spare parts, office equipment, and all other items neededfor company business, including fuel.
● exemption from any changes in laws related to tax holidays unless thechanges would provide additional benefits to Barama.
● exemption from any fees for logs or wood products except for licenceapplication fees.
● tax deductions on interest paid on financial loans, leasing and hire pur-chase agreements paid to any kind of business associate of Barama, andon any management charges paid by Barama (to its parent Samling).
● these 5-yr tax holidays in relation to charges and duties to be extended toany future investments made by Barama.
● permission to have external accounts in any currency, inside or outsideGuyana.
● self-setting of export and domestic market prices for products. It is notclear if this clause has allowed Barama to use nonmarket prices as FOBrates for Customs declarations but the wording appears to make it possible.
● employment of non-Guyanese up to 15% of the workforce, and higherlevels if Barama argues that local skills are not available, and provision ofvisas and work permits.
● right to withdraw from Guyana at any time without any kind of penalty.● right to create infrastructure and to have all necessary permits without
unreasonable delay, and the right to control use of any Barama-constructedroad and to charge a toll fee for use.
● extinguished concessions of all preexisting loggers in the same area.● offset of any costs incurred by Barama as a result of noncompliance by the
Government of Guyana, including delays in issue of permits or approvals,against payments due by Barama to the Government.
● absolute and unlimited protection against effects of any changes in laws,regulations, or procedures which would have negative impact on theincome or other benefits to Barama.
● rights to apply for mining licences and to open any other kind of businesswithout limits.
● notification of any proposals by other entities to exploit natural resourcesin the Barama concession.
● right to assign the logging concession and the rights under this foreigndirect investment agreement to other parties, in whole or in part.
● exemption from liability in event of force majeure.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
420 J. Bulkan
● assistance in securing insurance for commercial and political risks.● denial of the right of the Government of Guyana to claim sovereign
immunity with respect to the agreement.● guarantee of compensation in freely convertible currency in the event of
nationalization.
In exchange for this set of concessions by the Government of Guyana,in effect to operate an enclave economy, Barama agreed to only a limitedset of obligations:
● forest management plan for 3-yr periods with annual updates.● provide the Government “more definitely” with development costs.● payment of local government property taxes and fees.● payment of royalty only on round logs according to a specific schedule
adjusted every 4 yr and payable in Guyana dollars, with no allowancefor currency devaluation; the exchange rate was G$125 to US$1 inmidyear 1991 and was G$203 in October 2013. After yr 20 of this 25-yr agreement, Barama and the Government would renegotiate royaltypayments.
● payment of export taxes only on greenheart round logs and not on anyother species or any other products. Sizer (1996, p. 41) indicated that theexport tax was 2% of FOB log value for greenheart, although the FDIagreement does not specify a figure.
● formulation and implementation of a training program for local work-ers to improve skills and to improve their abilities to assume increasingresponsibilities.
● honor and respect all rights of the indigenous people as required by law.● area rental (acreage fee) was not specified in the FDI agreement but was
indicated by Sizer (1996, p. 41) as G$0.0185/ha/yr (US$0.0013/ha/yr), thusabout US$2200/yr for the entire 1.6 Mha concession and 1/154th of the ratepaid by Guyana concession holders (Bulkan & Palmer, 2007).
Promises by Barama Regarding Inward Investment
The FDI agreement contains no detail of what Barama would invest, noprogress indicators, and no provision for review with the exception of thevery small royalty rates. Sizer (1996, p. 39) quoted company informationthat its total proposed investment was US$154 million, of which US$88 hadbeen spent by 1996. According to newspaper reports in 1999, Barama pro-posed to spend US$32 million (International Tropical Timber Organization[ITTO], 2003, p. 23) to transfer its logging HQ from Port Kaituma to Buck Hallon the Essequibo River and to install sawmilling and veneer peeling there.This transfer was rational given that Barama had logged out its first three
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 421
compartments faster than initially indicated and given that by 1999 the com-pany’s interest had switched substantially from making plywood to exportingraw logs for processing in Asia (Bulkan & Palmer, 2008). Production atBarama’s plywood factory reduced during the decade 2000–2010, falling to20% of the installed capacity of 108,000 m3 in 2005–2006 and to 10% atthe end of 2006. A simple maintenance “error” closed the plywood mill in2011 for most of the year, coincident with very poor export sales. Productionwas still only 10% of capacity in 2012 (GFC, 2012).
The junior Minister for Forestry expressed concern about lack ofprogress on Barama investment in November 2006, threatened a review ofthe FDI arrangement, and demanded a reduction in log exports. Baramapromised US$35 million of new investment, a drying kiln and wood fin-ishing factory by March 2007 and a veneer mill by September 2007. TheUS$35 million appeared to be an update on the US$32 million forecast in1999. Barama made no commitment to reduce log exports. The Ministerannounced that the GFC would “monitor strict compliance with these plans”(“Forestry Transfer,” 2006). In June 2007, Barama claimed that a shortageof local skills was delaying the veneer mill. In spite of the low rates forthe few taxes actually paid, Barama was massively in arrears of payment inmid-decade while simultaneously claiming maximum tax concessions andpetitioning for increases (GFC, 2005a).
During its entire period in Guyana, Barama has repeatedly claimed thatit has earned no profits which are assessable for income or corporation tax.Independent accountant Chris Ram has commented on the unusual account-ing practices of Barama and the surprising lack of oversight by governmentagencies (Ram, 2007). The FDI tax concessions were so generous that theycovered Barama’s entire bill for area rental and royalties in 2007 (Bulkan &Palmer, 2007). Guyana was actually subsidising Barama to export jobs andlogs to Asia, entirely contrary to national policies.
Chinese- and Indian-Owned Logging Concessions
This “bundle of rights” made Barama’s forest concession license almost assecure as a freehold property. After the FDI agreement was leaked, a raceto the bottom began, with Asian loggers lining up to press for equal treat-ment. The absence of any information from the State on the terms of anysubsequent FDI contracts suggests that subsequent Asian loggers negotiatedcontracts similarly favorable to them. This is confirmed by arguments whichoccasionally reach the independent Press about absence of or delays toinvestment plans. Incoming entrepreneurs who secured SFEPs should havebeen preparing business investment plans, and sketchy outlines may beincluded in the Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs) alsorequired during SFEP lifetimes.
Chinese/Canadian-owned Jaling proposed to invest US$16.5 million inits logging concession TSA 02/2005 and sawmilling, parquet flooring, veneer
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
422 J. Bulkan
slicing, and kiln drying (“EPA Approves,” 2005). As with Barama, the JuniorMinister for forestry expressed concern about lack of progress and promisedvigilance. Jaling’s TSA was suspended in April 2007 after the civil societyinformed the Government about undisclosed changes in the effective own-ership of the company, but by then Bai Shan Lin had acquired a controllinginterest and claimed that it had agreed to invest US$4.5 million to saw logs forJaling (“Jaling Forestry,” 2007) and US$100 million in Guyana (Earle, 2007a).
Bai Shan Lin had promoted itself on arrival in Guyana as a value-added processor but rapidly expanded into the more profitable export ofraw logs, in spite of an export prohibition by the Government. Bai Shan Linwas accused by its workers of operating slave-like labor conditions at itsCoomacka sawmill in 2007 (Earle, 2007b; “Bai Shan Lin,” 2007) after receiv-ing a development grant of US$10 million from the European Union (Smith,2007). Since 2007, Bai Shan Lin has become a major purchaser of logs forexport. In early 2013, Bai Shan Lin claimed to have acquired control overlogging concessions totaling 960,000 ha, apparently contrary to laws andregulations about such renting from the original concession holders withoutprior permission of the President as Minister of Forests (Chu, 2012). By thethird quarter of 2013, the company had acquired a further 107,000 ha. BaiShan Lin announced plans for a 500-ha industrial park mainly for wood pro-cessing, a 160-ha residential estate, and claimed to have licences for 20 kmof river dredging for gold. In addition to having access to capital in China,through being a subsidiary of the Beijing Uni-Construction Company—aState-Owned Enterprise—Bai Shan Lin has an FDI arrangement in Guyanawith access to tax concessions. The GFC stated that Bai Shan Lin had commit-ted to spending US$40 million on timber harvesting alone plus US$60 millionfor the industrial park (“Roopnaraine,” 2013). The total proposed investmentin Guyana has not been publicized but, if carried out, it would be the largestAsian investment so far.
There have been several significant changes in de facto concession hold-ers of TSAs and Wood Cutting Leases (WCLs) during 2005–2013 which cannotbe shown in Figure 1. Some concessions have been rescinded by the GFCbecause they failed to comply with a nonstatutory requirement for minimumproduction, for persistent debt, or because they appeared to have beenabandoned. Boundaries have also been changed in a number of the reis-sued concessions. According to the National Forest Policy (1997, reiteratedin 2011), these concessions should have been nationally and internationallyadvertised, and the applicants subject to due diligence checks prior to a pub-lic auction. The successful applicants should have been given exploratorypermits for a nologging phase during which new forest management plansand business investment plans are prepared and ESIAs carried out. So faras can be determined, one or more of these activities have not been car-ried out in respect of each of the TSA and WCL concessions issued during2005–2013.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 423
Furthermore, the 1997 intention of conservation as the dominantpurpose of State Forest south of the 4th parallel of latitude has been erodedfrom 2006 onward. The Times of India first broke the news in April 2011 thatan Indian coffee retailer, locally incorporated as VHPI, had acquired twolarge-scale concessions totaling 747,000 ha in Guyana (Siddhartha, 2011).One of those concessions was SFEP 03/07 for 390,000 ha located betweenthe Berbice and Corentyne rivers that had been granted to Simon & Shock inJanuary 2008, who then sold it on to VHPI, in 2011. Similarly, SFEP 01/07 for167,000 ha—Sherwood Forrest Inc.—that had been awarded in 2007 jointlyto the Head of the WWF Guyana Office and to a consultant favored bythe GFC, had been sold on to Bai Shan Lin by 2011. In 2012, ConservationInternational Guyana (CIG) gave up its conservation concession in southernGuyana (TSA 01/2002 for 80,000 ha).
Figure 1 shows the expansion of the area of natural tropical rainforestunder logging concession from 1985 to 2013. Details of the increasein Chinese-owned concessions during 2005–2013 are not provided here.Comparisons between the GFC forest resources allocation maps drawn on awhole-country 1:1 million scale and posted annually by the GFC on its web-site show numerous changes in control and boundaries of the large-scaleTSAs and issue of new (prelogging) SFEPs. In the absence of the legallyrequired annual reports from the GFC, which should be delivered by theMinister to the Parliament for scrutiny, only sporadic information reachesthe Press about these changes. It is certainly not generally appreciated thatAsian loggers now control 79% of the area of TSAs and WCLs and 75% of thearea of SFEPs. The same companies are also major purchasers of logs fromsmall-scale and community logging associations.
Figure 1 shows that there has been a considerable change in the nation-ality of concession holders since the national forest policy was endorsedby the National Assembly in 1997 and the associated national forest planwas prepared in 2001. Revisions of both policy and plan in 2011 have notbeen presented to or debated by the National Assembly. The revisions donot touch on the change in de facto ownership of the best commercialState Forests areas. Neither of the trade associations—the Forest ProductsAssociation and the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association—hasdebated this change in open sessions. In practice, these same Asian com-panies now control both trade associations because the Asians are the onesthat pay the subscriptions.
No Public Discussion of Implications for Sovereignty
The implications for sovereignty are often raised in discussions of largeareas of national territory passing into foreign control. A recommendationfrom the World Bank is “where the concession in effect transfers a publicproperty right into private hands, there may be traditional or constitutional
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
424 J. Bulkan
reasons to require higher-level approval, such as action by the legislature,the head of government, or the head of state” (Christy, Di Leva, Lindsay, &Takoukam, 2007, p. 57). In the case of Guyana, the President, as Ministerof Forests, authorizes all large-scale concession awards, without having toconsult with or inform any other branch of government; for example, theNational Assembly (Parliament). The Government customarily releases onlyaggregated information on logging concessions or log exports. There isa strict blackout on the identity of the holders, and the sizes, duration,and production of logging concessions. Nor is information disclosed onthe identity of exporters or the species exported. Draconian provisions inforest law are intended to prevent any leaks. In 2007, the GFC Act wasrevised to include new Articles (13, 27) that impose a gag order on thedisclosure of any unauthorized information, with the penalty for disobedi-ence set summarily at US$5,000 and a year’s imprisonment in the case ofa person, and up to 10 times that amount in the case of a body corpo-rate (GFC, 2007). As a result of the restriction on information, there can beno public assessment of the implications for indigenous rights or nationalsovereignty.
ASIAN AND GUYANESE APPROACHES TO INVESTMENT IN THEFOREST SECTOR
The main part of this article has shown how the Asian transnational loggershave negotiated entry into Guyana and have effectively replaced an inef-ficient local forest sector. Table 1 summarizes the differences between theAsian and the locally owned enterprises.
Very few locally owned enterprises operate as public companies. Thereare only 12 such companies on the Guyana stock exchange. Individualsor families control all locally owned forest-related businesses. The highlevel of distrust between families in the same forest sector has been notedsince the Forest Department was created in the 1920s in part to counterthe poor reputation of timber suppliers when exporting to Europe and theUSA. In spite of many government- and donor-funded efforts, this lackof conventional business sense has persisted for over 90 yr. It is thusnot surprising that the Paris Club of creditors in the late 1980s perceivedthat recovery and development in Guyana needed injections of FDI com-panies. The creditors did not perceive, or were unable to control, theparticipation of high levels of political and executive government in ren-tier behavior, leading to the creation of Asian enclave economies operatingindependently from the parliamentary-approved policies for national devel-opment, and leading to the illicit enrichment of just a few top-rankingGuyanese.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
TAB
LE1
Char
acte
rist
ics
ofA
sian
and
Guya
nes
eLo
ggin
gCom
pan
ies
Oper
atin
gin
Guya
na
Char
acte
rist
icA
sian
com
pan
ies
Guya
nes
eco
mpan
ies
Size
Larg
e,co
ngl
om
erat
es.
Smal
l,fa
mily
-ow
ned
,an
doper
ated
.In
tern
atio
nal
exper
ience
SEA
sia,
Aust
ralia
/N
Z,W
estan
dCen
tral
Afr
ica.
Most
lyG
uya
na,
Car
ibbea
nIs
lands,
som
eU
SA.
Asp
irat
ions
Tobec
om
edom
inan
tpla
yers
inin
tern
atio
nal
fore
stpro
duct
s.To
enab
lea
com
fortab
lefa
mily
life
and
pro
vide
livel
ihoods
topar
asiti
cfa
mily
mem
ber
s.In
corp
ora
tion
Com
ple
xst
ruct
ure
sin
corp
ora
ted
inm
ulti
ple
tax
hav
ens,
subsi
dia
ryre
gist
ered
inG
uya
na.
Reg
iste
red
only
inG
uya
na.
Shar
ehold
ings
Public
lylis
ted
on
stock
exch
ange
s.Priva
te,no
exte
rnal
shar
ehold
ers.
Gove
rnm
entsu
pport
toco
mpan
ies
Inpolic
ies
and
Gove
rnm
entst
atem
ents
,G
ove
rnm
entofG
uya
na
mak
esno
dis
tinct
ion
bet
wee
ndom
estic
/nat
ional
com
pan
ies
and
inte
rnat
ional
/fo
reig
ndirec
tin
vest
ors
.In
vest
men
tco
de
1988
dra
fted
by
or
for
Inte
rnat
ional
Finan
ceCorp
ora
tion
super
visi
ng
the
Stru
ctura
lA
dju
stm
ent
Pro
gram
,re
vise
dby
Car
ana/
US-
AID
for
GO
-Inve
stin
2007
,ac
cess
ible
on
GO
-Inve
stw
ebsi
te;not
linke
dto
OECD
Guid
elin
esfo
rM
ulti
nat
ional
Ente
rprise
s.
Inve
stm
entsu
pport
Inpra
ctic
e,FD
Iag
reem
ents
are
written
by
the
Asi
anFD
Ico
mpan
ies,
assu
ring
hig
hly
ben
efici
alan
dex
clusi
vear
range
men
ts.
Aw
ard
ofin
vest
men
tin
centiv
esis
inpra
ctic
eat
the
dis
cret
ion
ofhea
ds
ofG
ove
rnm
ent
agen
cies
,so
met
imes
direc
ted
by
aCab
inet
subco
mm
ittee
,w
ho
are
awar
eoflik
esan
ddis
likes
ofth
eru
ling
polit
ical
Par
ty.
Par
entgo
vern
men
tbac
king
Gen
eric
rath
erth
ansp
ecifi
c,m
aybe
explic
itif
com
pan
yis
aSt
ate-
Ow
ned
Ente
rprise
(SO
E).
Asi
antran
snat
ional
may
enjo
yin
form
alm
ater
ialsu
pport
and
polit
ical
connec
tivity
thro
ugh
loca
ldip
lom
atic
mis
sion.
Supported
inm
any
way
s(e
.g.,
thro
ugh
nonco
mpet
itive
contrac
ts)
iflin
ked
toth
eru
ling
polit
ical
Par
ty;if
notso
linke
d,
imped
edan
dfr
ust
rate
ddel
iber
atel
yth
rough
exce
ssiv
edis
cret
ion
allo
wed
toth
eG
ove
rnm
entag
enci
esby
poorly
dra
fted
law
san
dre
gula
tions.
(Con
tin
ued
)
425
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
TAB
LE1
(Contin
ued
)
Char
acte
rist
icA
sian
com
pan
ies
Guya
nes
eco
mpan
ies
Cap
italav
aila
ble
Dee
ppock
ets,
able
tocr
eate
subsi
dia
ryco
mpan
ies,
tora
ise
capita
lth
rough
IPO
san
dco
mm
erci
alm
arke
ts,to
pro
mis
ehig
hyi
elds,
and
tose
cure
hig
hcr
edit
ratin
gs.
Inva
riab
lyin
dee
plo
ng-
term
deb
t,under
capita
lized
,lo
wco
llate
ral,
hig
hrisk
for
com
mer
cial
loan
s,lo
wcr
edit
ratin
g.
Oper
atio
nal
cash
Ple
ntif
ul,
imported
lega
llyan
dfr
eely
,so
met
imes
bac
ked
by
Chin
ese.
Alw
ays
insh
ort
supply
.
Staf
fing
FDIar
range
men
tsin
pra
ctic
eal
low
Asi
anco
mpan
ies
tobring
inth
eir
ow
nst
affan
dco
ntrac
tors
,em
plo
yfe
wor
no
Guya
nes
e,as
sure
no
trai
nin
gor
up-s
killi
ng,
oper
ate
asen
clav
ein
dust
ries
,hap
py
tom
ake
use
ofG
ove
rnm
enttrai
nin
gfa
cilit
ies
bec
ause
ow
nim
ported
work
ers
are
esse
ntia
llyca
ptiv
ean
dca
nnotsw
itch
emplo
yers
bec
ause
pas
sports
and
resi
den
ceper
mits
are
reta
ined
by
the
Asi
anem
plo
yer.
Sala
ries
are
pai
dpar
tlyin
par
entco
untry.
Tra
diti
onal
lyre
luct
antto
mak
euse
even
of
donor-
funded
trai
nin
gopportuniti
es,on
grounds
that
trai
ned
staf
fw
ould
be
imm
edia
tely
poac
hed
by
com
pet
itors
.Pre
ferr
edem
plo
ymen
toffa
mily
mem
ber
sw
het
her
suita
ble
or
not.
Use
ofco
ntrac
tors
May
use
loca
lco
mpan
ies
asco
ntrac
tors
ifin
dic
ated
aspolit
ical
lydes
irab
lebut
gener
ally
reta
inal
lke
yan
dsu
per
viso
ryposi
tions
inA
sian
han
ds.
Long
trad
ition
ofre
ntie
rbeh
avio
r,w
her
epar
entco
mpan
yac
quires
the
oper
atin
glic
ense
from
Gove
rnm
entan
dm
inim
izes
cost
san
drisk
sby
contrac
ting
out
oper
atio
ns
tose
mi-lit
erat
egr
oups
of
work
ers
inex
chan
gefo
rm
onth
lyre
ntor
shar
eofpro
fits
.Sa
les
contrac
tsM
aybe
written
,m
aybe
org
aniz
edto
faci
litat
etran
sfer
prici
ng.
Usu
ally
unw
ritten
toev
ade
tax
on
sale
s.
Pay
men
tofta
xes
Tra
nsf
erprici
ng
and
nonst
andar
dac
countin
gm
inim
ize
most
taxe
s,FD
Iar
range
men
tsm
inim
ize
or
elim
inat
eex
port-im
port
taxa
tion.B
enefi
tsex
tend
tole
galan
dill
egal
subsi
dia
ries
.
For
his
torica
lre
asons.
1970
s/19
80s:
alm
ost
par
anoid
effo
rts
toav
oid
pap
ertrai
lsw
hic
hm
ightdis
close
taxa
ble
sale
san
din
com
e.
426
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Know
ledge
ofm
arke
tsExt
ensi
veco
ntrac
tsth
rough
the
Chin
ese
dia
spora
plu
sco
rpora
telin
ksto
pro
cess
ing
fact
ories
inA
sia.
Tra
diti
onal
lyprice
-tak
ers,
no
or
very
limite
def
forts
tom
arke
tev
enth
em
ost
trad
itional
and
com
mer
cial
lyw
ell-kn
ow
ntim
ber
s.Cooper
ativ
em
arke
ting
Mar
ketin
gef
forts
thro
ugh
linke
d.co
mpan
ies
asw
ellas
par
ticip
atio
nin
Gove
rnm
ent-bac
ked
trad
em
issi
ons.
Tra
diti
onal
ly,th
efo
rest
sect
or
has
suffer
edfr
om
hig
hle
vels
ofin
tern
alco
mpet
ition
and
suic
idal
under
cuttin
gofprice
s,poor
fulfi
llmen
tofex
port
contrac
tsin
time
and
volu
me,
poor
qual
ityco
ntrol.
Tra
de
asso
ciat
ions
Use
dco
llect
ivel
yto
pro
mote
aco
llect
ive
view
ofChin
ese
skill
san
dpote
ntia
lben
efits
tohost
countrie
s.A
sian
logg
ers
inG
uya
na
pay
the
dues
ofth
etrad
eas
soci
atio
ns
and
hav
eef
fect
ivel
ypurc
has
edco
ntrol.
Loca
len
terp
rise
sar
em
ost
lyin
def
ault
on
pay
men
tofdues
,an
das
soci
atio
ns
hav
enotbee
nuse
dto
dev
elop
and
pro
mote
colle
ctiv
ely
ben
efici
altrad
epolic
ies.
Corr
uptio
nA
sian
com
pan
ies
dea
lw
ithth
eap
exof
gove
rnm
ent,
inpolit
ics
and
tech
nic
alag
enci
es,en
suring
no
or
only
sele
ctiv
eap
plic
atio
nofla
ws
and
regu
latio
ns.
Cost
ofco
rruptio
nis
smal
lre
lativ
eto
the
ben
efits
ofbei
ng
able
tooper
ate
inef
fect
outs
ide
the
law
s.
Loca
lco
mpan
ies
enga
gein
low
-lev
elco
rruptio
nas
par
tofth
eusu
alco
sts
of
dai
lybusi
nes
s,to
appea
sevi
ndic
tive
agen
cies
.A
cces
sto
apex
ofgo
vern
men
tdep
ends
on
per
ceiv
edPar
tylo
yalty
.
427
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
428 J. Bulkan
The advent of Asian transnationals in the late 1980s through the SAPhas been described above. Creditor supervision declined as Highly IndebtedPoor Countries (HIPC) provisions took effect and Guyana’s massive exter-nal debts were controlled or forgiven in the early 1990s (Colchester, 1997).At least from the late 1990s, the entry of Asian transnationals (in logging andgold mining, construction, ICT, and retail clothing) has occurred in parallelwith the creation of “the State as a vehicle for criminal enterprise” (Thomas,2003) through the influx of illegal earnings from drug smuggling and moneylaundering on a large scale. Thomas, Jourdain, and Pasha (2011) confirmedthat between 42–52% of the economy between 2001–2008 was likely to bederived from illegal business.
From 2012, and for the first time, the small and disorganized Oppositionpolitical parties were able to call into question a major initiative of the formerPresident: a US$1.2 billion construction and financing cost for a hydropowerdam which could have involved a commercial loan of US$450 millionfrom the China Development Bank and the all-Chinese construction byChina Railway First Development Group, in an apparently very high-costscheme relative to hydropower dams elsewhere. A small number of inde-pendent citizens have been able to extract hitherto-hidden documentsabout the hydropower construction contracts, in part through leakage fromgovernment offices (Thomas, 2013).
Similar allegations about government secrecy and malpractice have beensurfacing about the gold mining sector where Canadian-Guyanese prospect-ing companies and Brazilian garimpeiros (Colchester, La Rose, & James,2002) have been able to invade Amerindian customary lands illegally butwith government acquiescence or collusion, later supported by inappropri-ate High Court decisions (Bulkan, 2011). Whether this citizens’ revolt againstcorruption and secret contracts will affect Asian enclaves in the forest sectoris unclear at this stage.
In contrast, the GFC has applied rigorously the communication con-trols of “democratic centralism” and the severe threats in the GFC Act2007 to deter similar leakage about the Asian-controlled logging conces-sions. Hence, the abundant allegations about the forest sector remain ascircumstantial evidence validated by the frequency and consistency of theindividually communicated stories rather than through any public inquiry orcross-examination in the High Court.
Table 1 above compares the business attitudes and practices of theAsian and Guyanese holders of logging concessions (Bulkan fieldwork notes,2003–2013). The 1989 investment code is no longer accessible, and it is notclear if the 1999 code was ever completed. The Government’s investmentpromotion vehicle Go-INVEST was formed in 1994. USAID supported a fullguide to investment promotion in 2007. Go-INVEST has been subservientto decisions on investment incentives by Cabinet and by the Commissionerof the Guyana Revenue Authority, regardless of the published criteria forsupport.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 429
Guyana has several laws providing or including investment incentivesand the GFC provided a comprehensive guide in 2005 (GFC, 2005b). Theincentives proposed included extracts from the draft revisions of the ForestsAct and Forest Regulations from 2004, and from the National DevelopmentStrategy 1996/2000. None of the proposals has been implemented.
The national development bank, Gaibank, was dissolved in acrimony atthe change of government in 1992 and has not subsequently been revived.A Small Business Bureau (SBB) was created under its own Act in 2004 butremained unfunded. Commercial banks have small-business windows butthese are risk averse to the forest sector which generally cannot offer col-lateral for loans. Facilitators such as IPED and EMPRETEC have acted aslocal managers of small business loans from bilateral donor funds and haveprovided training, for thousands of small-scale enterprises. Information isnot available to show how much the forest sector has benefitted from suchloans and training (Bulkan, 2009). In 2013, the Inter-American DevelopmentBank began to act as Partner Entity for managing US$5 million for small busi-nesses from the Norwegian-funded Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF)and channeled to the SBB. However, as designed, the SBB will simply adda layer of bureaucracy because the actual delivery of loans and training willcontinue to be through the commercial banks and facilitators (President tolaunch, 2013).
It is unclear how or if the GRIF project will overcome the culturalproblems and inability to save of the Guyanese businesses. There are someGuyanese-owned businesses which are successful in global terms, but theyare few in number and have prospered in spite of rather than becauseof government actions. And none are in the forest sector. Since 1991, theGovernment of Guyana has seemed to prefer the Asian investors whichhave access to cheap money outside Guyana and which make extravagantpromises.
CONCLUSIONS
Through individual negotiations, the Government has granted large areas offorest to Asian loggers under extraordinarily favorable terms which are notavailable to Guyanese nationals and in disregard of development policiesapproved by the National Assembly. The absence of Jeffersonian-style tri-partite government since before Independence has been reinforced by thecooperative socialist National Constitution 1980/2003 in that an ExecutivePresidency and a highly partisan ruling political Party since 1992 haveblocked implementation of the non-partisan National Development Strategy1995–1997 and substituted megalomaniac schemes devised in the Office ofthe President (Bulkan, 2009). A Presidency and an avowedly Marxist-Socialistruling political Party obsessed with power per se have allowed a markedlyunlevel situation to develop in the forest sector, such that Asian transnationals
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
430 J. Bulkan
can obtain at low cost almost unlimited access to resources, while domes-tic companies struggle to survive against predatory government agenciesand their own inabilities to cooperate in commercially viable alliances. Thelong-term weaknesses of the domestically owned logging companies haveallowed Asian transnationals to grab the extensive forest resources almost bydefault.
What would it take to create a more modern forest sector? Since the mid-1990s the technology for small-scale mobile bandmills has been available,and demonstrated in Guyana, to show the possibility of a more technicallyand ecologically appropriate system of harvesting and conversion of logs totimber (Mendes & Macqueen, 2006). The intrinsic viability of small-scale in-forest band milling needs to be made actually viable by the implementationof conventional business management skills by enterprises which tradition-ally have used “two-pocket” accounting: if I have more receipts from sales inone coat pocket than the invoices for costs in my other coat pocket, then mybusiness is in profit (Landell-Mills, 1997). Years of training courses on sim-ple bookkeeping and accounting and banking, funded by bilateral donors,have left little visible impact; the tradition of keeping no written records withthe intent of evading tax has been sustained. Perhaps little improvement ispossible while there are countrywide perceptions that there is no moral lead-ership from the apex of government, while government supporters securecontracts and obtain wealth at a rapidity which would be impossible throughlegitimate business, and that what is important is close connection with theruling Party rather than success through conventional enterprise. Meanwhile,the natural tropical rainforest is easily degraded by unskilled logging, andthere is no verifiable evidence that the legality or quality of logging has beensupervised or controlled by the national forest service since a brief flurryinduced by citizen pressure in 2007 (Efeca, 2011).
What lessons of global applicability can be drawn from this sorry story?The kleptocratic practices of the apex of government and government agen-cies in Guyana have been permitted in part because of the continuedapplication of democratic centralism, which severely restricts the free accessby citizens to information which is guaranteed by the national Constitution(Article 146). During 1999–2011, the duration of the Jagdeo Presidency, theruling political Party had a parliamentary majority and would not respondto the most reasonable queries from the Opposition benches. The NationalAssembly still lacks mechanisms to force government ministries and agen-cies to respond to even the mild comments in the annual reports of thesemi-independent Auditor-General. The National Assembly and its sectoralcommittees do have legal power to subpoena witnesses and to compel theproduction of documents (Government of Guyana, 1880/1972), but this part-time parliament has little practice or confidence in democratic procedures.
Transparency International (2006) reiterates that action against cor-ruption requires a core of effective moral leadership, which has been
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 431
effectively absent in Guyana since 1997. Small numbers of citizens do ana-lyze the information which trickles out of government offices, and do publishanalyses in the two independent daily newspapers. This is important in doc-umenting for taxpayers in bilateral donor countries how their aid money isbeing diverted from the formally agreed developmental objectives, becausethe consultancy companies engaged by the donors to verify progress tend tobe reluctant to press for answers from recalcitrant ministries and agencies (forexample, Rainforest Alliance, 2012). Donor agencies do not seem to appre-ciate how their care to avoid interference in national sovereignty can leadto inadvertent support for authoritarian and kleptocratic rule. Comparing thecase of Guyana to other developing countries, one conclusion is that donorspay attention mainly when their own strategic interests are involved. Theintense irritation of the ruling political Party in Guyana when a verifyingconsultancy presses questions, or when a donor diplomat seeks to withholdfunds on the grounds of noncompliance with agreed objectives (as in thesugar sector), are indications of what could be achieved by a display ofmoral fiber by donors and by the National Assembly. Civil society can hardlycomplain about poor governance if civil society does not take up and at leasttry to apply Article 13 of the National Constitution which provides for sharedgovernment between Executive and citizens.
REFERENCES
Amerindians protest for recognition of rights—‘Count your blessings,’ gov’tsupporters say. (2013, August 10). Stabroek News.
Bai Shan Lin a slave camp–Workers. (2007, August 15). Kaieteur News.Benjamin, A., & Pierre, L. A. (1995). Review of legislation in relation to land, forestry
and mining. In J. Forte (Ed.), Situation analysis of indigenous use of the for-est with emphasis on Region 1. Georgetown, Guyana: University of Guyana,Amerindian Research Unit.
Benn, D., & Hall, K. (2000). Globalisation: A calculus of inequality—Perspectivesfrom the South. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle.
Borras, S. M., Jr., & Franco, J. C. (2012). Global land grabbing and trajectories ofagrarian change: A preliminary analysis. Journal of Agrarian Change, 12(1),34–59.
Bulkan, C. A. (2008). The land rights of Guyana’s indigenous peoples (Unpublisheddoctoral dissertation). York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Bulkan, C. A. (2011). From instrument of empire to vehicle for change: Thepotential of emerging international standards for indigenous peoples of theCommonwealth Caribbean. Commonwealth Law Bulletin, 37(3), 463–489.
Bulkan, J. (2009). Slippages between forestry concession policies and practices inGuyana (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Yale University, New Haven, CT .
Bulkan, J. (2013). The struggle for recognition of the indigenous voice: Amerindiansin Guyanese politics. The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal ofInternational Affairs, 102(4), 367–380. doi:10.1080/00358533.2013.795009
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
432 J. Bulkan
Bulkan, J., & Palmer, J. R. (2007). Lazy days at international banks: How CreditSuisse and HSBC support illegal logging and unsustainable timber harvesting bySamling/Barama in Guyana, and possible reforms. Retrieved from http://www.illegal-logging.info/uploads/Samling_Barama.pdf
Bulkan, J., & Palmer, J. R. (2008). Breaking the rings of forest corruption: Stepstowards better forest governance. Forests, Trees & Livelihoods, 18, 103–131.
Bulkan, J., & Palmer, J. R. (2009). Scientific forestry and degraded forests: The story ofGuiana Shield forests. In N. L. Whitehead & S. W. Aleman, (Eds.), Anthropologiesof Guayana: Cultural spaces in Northeastern Amazonia (pp.74–89). Tucson:University of Arizona Press.
Christy, L., Di Leva, C. E., Lindsay, J., & Takoukam, P. T. (2007). Forest law andsustainable development: Addressing contemporary challenges through legalreform (Law, Justice, and Development Series). Washington, DC: The WorldBank.
Chu, W. (2012, November). Chinese enterprises to Guyana. Paper presented at the2nd World Congress on Timber and Wood Products Trade, Taicang, China.Retrieved from http://www.cnwood.org/congress/ehyrc.html
Colchester, M. (1997). Guyana, fragile frontier: Loggers, miners and forest peoples.Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle.
Colchester, M., La Rose, J., & James, K. (2002). Mining and Amerindians in Guyana.Ottawa, ON, Canada: The North-South Institute.
Deininger, K. (2011). Forum on global land grabbing: Challenges posed by the newwave of farmland investment. Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(2), 217–247.
Earle, J. (2007a, February 9). New Chinese forest company pledges to investUS$100M. Stabroek News.
Earle, J. (2007b, August 15). Safety violations seen at Coomacka timber works.Stabroek News.
Efeca. (2011). Review of Guyana’s legality assurance system. Washington, DC:USAID/GTIS.
EPA approves timber project. (2005, July 17). Stabroek News.Forestry transfer pricing probe on—Commissioner Singh—Barama, Jialing to come
under closer scrutiny. (2006, December 9). Stabroek News.Government of Guyana. (1969). Report by the Amerindian Lands Commission.
Georgetown, Guyana: Author.Government of Guyana. (1976). Amerindian Act (Cap. 29:01).Government of Guyana. (1880/1972). Legislative Bodies (Evidence) Act (Cap. 1:08).Government of Guyana. (2006). Amerindian Act (Cap. 29:01). Georgetown, Guyana:
Ministry of Legal Affairs.Guyana Forestry Commission. (1953/1997). Forests Act (Cap. 67:01, 1953).
Georgetown, Guyana: Ministry of Legal Affairs.Guyana Forestry Commission. (2009). Forests Act (Cap. 67:01). Georgetown,
Guyana: Ministry of Legal Affairs.Grayum, G. H. (1971). Logging and forest management. Forest industries develop-
ment survey, Guyana—FIDS (FO:SF/GUY 9, Technical Report Number 12).Georgetown, Guyana: UNDP/FAO.
Gross-Braun, E. H., Derting, J., & Suggett, R. (1965). Report of the soil survey project ofBritish Guiana VII: A report to accompany a general soil map of British Guiana.Rome, Italy: FAO.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
Forest Grabbing Through Forest Concession Practices 433
Guyana Forestry Commission. (1993). Policy—Timber concession. Georgetown,Guyana: Author.
Guyana Forestry Commission. (1997). Forests (Amendment) (ExploratoryPermits)Act.
Guyana Forestry Commission. (2005a). Guyana’s forest sector contribution to GDP:Review of forest concession allocation. Georgetown, Guyana: Author.
Guyana Forestry Commission. (2005b). Incentives for Guyana’s forest sector—Existing and proposed. Georgetown, Guyana: Author.
Guyana Forestry Commission. (2007). Guyana Forestry Commission Act No. 20 of2007.
Guyana Forestry Commission. (2012). Forest sector information report: Annualreview 2012. Georgetown, Guyana: Author.
Harvey, D. (2003). The new imperialism. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford UniversityPress.
International Tropical Timber Organization. (2003). Achieving the ITTO Objective2000 and sustainable forest management in Guyana [Report submitted to theITTO by the Diagnostic Mission established pursuant to Decision 2(XXIX)].Yokohama, Japan: Author.
Jaling forestry deal suspended—following breaches, non-compliance. (2007, May 7).Stabroek News.
Landell-Mills, N. (1997). Stumpage value appraisal for log extraction in Guyana:Report based on eight case studies. Georgetown, Guyana: Guyana ForestryCommission.
Macpherson, C. B. (2011). Property: mainstream and critical positions. Toronto:University of Toronto Press.
Mendes, A., & Macqueen, D. J. (2006). Raising forest revenues and employment:Unlocking the potential of small and medium forest enterprises in Guyana.Edinburgh, United Kingdom: International Institute for Environment andDevelopment.
Menezes, M. N. (1988). The Amerindians of Guyana: Original lords of the soil.América Indígena, 48(2), 353–373.
Overseas Development Administration. (1994). Project memorandum. GuyanaForestry Commission support project. London, United Kingdom: Author.
Palmer, J. (1996). Report on forest revenue systems: Guyana Forestry Commission sup-port project. London, United Kingdom: Overseas Development Administration.
Pellow, D. N. (2007). Environment, modernity, inequality. In D. N. Pellow (Ed.),Resisting global toxics: Transnational movements for environmental justice(pp.1–36). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
President signs order extending State Forest. (2007, September 28). Stabroek News.President to launch first phase of GRIF-funded small business support project. (2013,
October 11). Stabroek News.Prudham, S. & Coleman, W.D. (2011). Introduction: Property, autonomy, territory,
and globalization. In W.D. Coleman (Ed.), Property, territory, globalization:struggles over autonomy (pp.1–28). Vancouver: UBC Press.
Rainforest Alliance. (2012). Verification of progress related to indicators for theGuyana-Norway REDD+ Agreement: 2nd verification audit covering the periodOctober 1, 2010–June 30, 2012. Richmond, VT: Author.
Ram, C. (2007, June 2). Barama and the law. Stabroek News.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
434 J. Bulkan
Ramsahoye, F. H. W. (1966). The development of land law in British Guiana. NewYork, NY: Oceana.
Roopnaraine calls for thorough scrutiny of Bai Shan Lin investment agreements.(2013, May 7). Stabroek News.
Schmithusen, F. (1977). Forest utilization contracts on public land (2nd ed., FAOForestry Paper 1). Rome, Italy: FAO.
Seed, P. (1995). Ceremonies of possession in Europe’s conquest of the New World,1492-1640. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Seymour, F. J., & Dubash, N. K. (2000). The right conditions: The World Bank, struc-tural adjustment, and forest policy reform. Washington, DC: World ResourcesInstitute.
Siddhartha, V. G. (2011, April 7). Well-known Indian coffee-maker taps Guyana’sfurniture wood. Times of India.
Sizer, N. (1996). Profit without plunder: Reaping revenue from Guyana’s tropicalforests without destroying them. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.
Smith, N. (2007, June 18). Mixed reviews for LEAP—Next two years seen as crucialfor Linden scheme. Stabroek News.
Swabey, C. (1950). Note on the development of forest policy in British Guiana.Timehri, 29, 27–35.
ter Steege, H. (2000). Plant diversity in Guyana: With recommendations for anational protected area strategy. Wageningen, Then Netherlands: TropenbosFoundation.
Thomas, C. Y. (2003). The State as a vehicle for criminal enterprise. Guyana andthe Wider World, 29 sequential weekly articles from 9 March to 21 September.Stabroek News.
Thomas, C. Y., Jourdain, N. S., & Pasha, S. (2011). Revisiting the undergroundeconomy in Guyana 2001–2008. Transition, 40, 60–86.
Thomas, C. Y. (2013). Anatomy of the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project. 8 sequentialweekly articles from 9 June to 28 July. Stabroek News. Georgetown.
Thomson, M. (1994). An economic analysis of forest resource charges in Guyana.Georgetown, Guyana: Guyana Forestry Commission.
Transparency International. 2006. Handbook for curbing corruption in publicprocurement. Berlin, Germany: Author.
Troup, R. S. (1940). Colonial forest administration. Oxford, United Kingdom:Clarendon Press.
United States Embassy Guyana. (1999). Chapter II: Economic trends and outlook,Government role in the economy. In Country Commercial Guide Guyana,Fiscal Year 1999. Retrieved from http://guayanausa.org/Imported/commercial_guide_guyana.htm. Accessed July 23, 2013.
Vandergeest, P., & Peluso, N. L. (2006). Empires of forestry: Professional forestry andstate power in Southeast Asia, Part 1. Environment and History, 12(1), 31–64.
Vieira, V., & Richardson, H. (1957). Forest conditions, problems and programmes inBritish Guiana. Caribbean Forester, 18(1–2), 44–48.
Vieira, V. S. (1980). Logging in Guyana and considerations for improvements.Georgetown, Guyana: Guyana National Printers.
Weaver, J. C. (2006). The great land rush and the making of the modern world,1650-1900. Montreal, QC, Canada: McGill-Queens University Press.
Westoby, J. C. (1962). Forest industries in the attack on economic underdevelopment.Unasylva, 16(4), 168–201.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f Il
linoi
s C
hica
go]
at 0
8:43
17
Oct
ober
201
4
