Bai Shan Lin (BSL), a partially state-owned Chinese logging company began operating in 2007 in Guyana, a small but resource-rich South American country nestled between Venezuela and Suriname on the Caribbean coast to the north of Brazil. The victory of the ‘A Partnership for National Unity'...

Successive coastland-dominated governments in independent Guyana have retained both rentier control of resource extractive activities located on State-claimed public lands and the colonial tradition of absentee holders of State-issued concession licences to logging and mining. The colonial...

This briefing paper is organised with the following sections:1. FDI arrangements for investment, milling, training, proportion of foreign staff2. Unregistered and unapproved changes in ownership structure of the Asian companies/trading of logging concessions3. Illegal renting and managerial...

Colonial governments asserted sovereignty and property rights gradually over the territory of Guyana, disregarding pre-existing Indigenous Rights. Although a Forest Department modelled on the Indian Forest Service was established, there was no equivalent settlement process to determine the...

Small loggers' associations in Guyana have grown from one to 73 between 2000 and 2014 with over 2 000 members and 4 000 chainsaw millers. They hold 128 2-year renewable harvest licences to 488 Kha, generally in rainforest already degraded by uncontrolled logging. The slippages between government...

Some of the consequences of the revision of Guyana's Mining Act in 1989 that was intended to open up access to international mining companies while safeguarding national mining interests are examined. However, a perverse outcome of the revision was that landlordism or rentier practices in the...