Felled rosewood prior to moratorium will be sold

In Thursday’s newscast we reported that Minister of Forestry Lisel Alamilla met with dealers and loggers in Boom Creek and Santa Teresa to discuss a way forward in the wake of a recent moratorium on rosewood extraction.  Since the suspension on March sixteenth stakeholders have been up in arms over losses they have had to incur as a result of non-salable lumber.  Today, we caught up with Minister Alamilla in the margins of her first meeting with APAMO, the umbrella organization of NGOs that presented their plan of work. Alamilla told News Five that a decision has been taken to allow loggers a two-week period in order for them to haul and sell all pieces of rosewood that were felled prior to the freeze and that new felling is not allowed.

Lisel Alamilla, Minister of Forestry

“I met with the organization that has the logging concession [and] they had some concerns.  They were unclear on what the moratorium meant in regards to logging other species.  So I just explained to them that they can continue with their logging operations but as long as they weren’t logging rosewood.  That was a very quick, amicable meeting and I told them to proceed.  That was all that was about.  And I actually had another meeting following that Boom Creek meeting with [residents of] Santa Teresa and we spent two hours with them and we reached a resolution that the community agreed on how to proceed with some rosewood that was cut within the concession area and outside of the concession area.  It was a very fruitful meeting and the next place I want to go is Santa Ana where there are more conflictive issues going on.”

Isani Cayetano

Lisel Alamilla

“In terms of some of the concerns raised, based on interviews we conducted in the south, some people are saying, “well look, we harvested rosewood prior to the moratorium.  What impact does it have now for us to be able to sell the stock that we have seeing as though it’s just sitting there and languishing?”

Lisel Alamilla

“Well they will be allowed to sell their rosewood; however, right now we don’t want the rosewood to be cut because there is still cutting going on.  We need to communicate that clearly that if they are conducting any activity in rosewood it is illegal and we will bring the Forestry Act and follow through [with] legal [proceedings].  There are legal implications for them but we have no intention at all to have any of this material sit and go to waste.”