The Guyana Forestry Commission and partners will be hosting an upcoming virtual learning event on the European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (EU-FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) titled Markets, Technologies and Communities: Lessons and Experiences for the Forest and Wood Product Sector in Guyana from Tuesday, November 10 to Friday, November 13, 2020, via Zoom.
As Guyana progresses with the VPA implementation, opportunities exist to share the country’s progress, connect local actors with institutions in other VPA countries and learn from each other’s experiences. Guyana and the European Union began negotiating the VPA in December 2012 and concluded negotiations in November 2018. The Guyana-EU FLEGT VPA aims to address illegal logging, improve forest governance and promote trade in legal timber products. Once ratified, the VPA would commit both parties to trade timber products that have been legally harvested, transported and processed.
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The objective of this event, therefore, is to support local forest sector stakeholders on key issues related to the VPA implementation. This support involves bringing together national and international stakeholders with the purpose of learning from each other, sharing their lessons and building collaborative networks as well as providing a space for dialogue between the government and forest sector stakeholders. It will also focus on local private sector capacity-building so that they can comply with international regulations through interactions with buyers from countries who import tropical timber.
The Guyana Forestry Commission has partnered with the World Resources Institute (WRI), the European Forest Institute Technical Assistance Project (EFITAP), the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland acting through the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations-European Union (FAO-EU) FLEGT Programme.
In 2016 Guyana hosted its second VPA experiences and lessons learned event titled Sharing Regional Lessons on FLEGT VPA processes: Transitioning from Negotiations to Implementation with representatives from ten VPA countries, the public and private sector, non-governmental organisations and community representatives. These series of events provide a forum for alliance-building and partnerships, knowledge-sharing and research in the timber-producing countries.
Daily live streaming of the event will take place from 09-13 hrs (GYT) on the Guyana Forestry Commission’s YouTube channel, Facebook page and the event’s website.
To learn more about this event and how to attend, please visit www.guyanaflegtevent2020.com.