In a similar manner to the way the government currently monitors oil and gas activities offshore, a system for real-time monitoring of Guyana’s forests will also be established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to complement the work done by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC).
This was announced by Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat while responding to a question from a member of the audience on day two of the Guyana Energy Conference and Expo on Wednesday, at the Marriott Hotel, Georgetown.
Asked how Guyana guards against illegal logging, Bharrat had this to say.
“The GFC and the GGMC combined, we have over 50 stations in the interior, manned by forest and mining officers. Added to that, we have the compliance department and over 50 wardens. And they have two stations. In total we have over 500 officers at different interior locations where there is heavy mining and forestry activities concentrated,” the Minister said.
“The Vice President would have mentioned MRVS system… monitoring, reporting and verification system. That has been helping us to monitor our forest coverage. The EPA has a new system that will come on board very soon. We’ve already started it offshore Guyana, but we’ll start using it in our forests too.”
According to Bharrat, even now the government is able to monitor offshore oil and gas activities remotely, able to see how many ships come in and how much oil is being offloaded. He said that this system will also be implemented in the forestry sector.
“We’re shifting it to our forests and mining activities, besides from our capabilities on the ground. Because at some point we have to move towards the use of technology. We haven’t been doing that too much.”
“In terms of forestry, its basically easy to monitor forest activities. I often say to loggers and anyone who asks the question, its not everyday you will see a man with a log on his back running around or trying to hide from us,” Bharrat further said.
Last year, the EPA implemented real-time satellite monitoring of oil and gas activities. This has included real-time reporting of environmental discharges from the Liza 1 Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels, and a platform for tracking marine vessels in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
