The hard, heavy and naturally durable timbers were appreciated by the European traders for marine construction work in Europe (dock piling, especially with the iconic and nearly endemic Chlorocardium rodiei). With its small human population concentrated in the treeless coastland and its naturally infertile hinterland soils, Guyana has mostly retained its cover of natural tropical rainforest since European contact in the late 1500s. For the companies logging in government concessions, the lack of tenure security was a deterrent they had no assurance that their investment in silviculture would yield a reward as they might not hold the concession at the next scheduled harvest time. Also, only 20 per cent of the companies focused post-logging silviculture on the potential crop trees for the next harvest and even fewer employed liberation thinning, in spite of the documented positive research results from such silviculture in enhanced growth and commercial yield.

However, most enterprises were working in polyspecific forests yet continued to focus on extracting just the traditionally preferred timbers, and apparently made little effort to commercialise the many technically adequate but lesser-known timbers. Most conducted some kind of reduced-impact logging and 48 per cent conducted some post-logging silviculture, so these companies represent about the best forest management in commercial operations in developing countries. if the companies had only “controlled wood” certification-that is, only avoiding the worst practices-or if they were certified to forest management standards for good or best practice. Seventy per cent of the companies worked in concessions issued by national or state governments the other 30 per cent owned their forests.

All the enterprises had quality assurance certificates for their management operations issued under Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) standards. collected data from 51 commercial enterprises logging in tropical or subtropical forests.

Eco global survival tree stump?