Large-scale actions against Niaouli in French Guyana!

In August 2022 and February 2023, GEPOG called on service providers to deploy control actions on plots of adult Niaouli. In total, nearly 3,500 niaoulis were felled, thus enabling the tests carried out in previous years to be applied.

Actions of flush cutting on a dense plot of Niaouli – GEPOG

Two years of testing

From 2019 to 2021, GEPOG conducted a test protocol for the control method against adult niaoulis on plots belonging to the Center Spatial Guyanais (CSG). On nearly 200 trees, different methods were tested such as flush cutting, girdling with or without application of low and high concentration herbicides. GEPOG was able to conclude that the most effective method is cutting at ground level without herbicides. This method was therefore selected to be implemented on two large stands located to the west and east of Guyana.

A first major action in 2022

In August 2022, GEPOG carried out a first large-scale action on a monospecific population of Niaouli with an area of 1 ha of adult niaoulis, in the heart of a plot located in Mana, west of Guyana, belonging to the Territorial Collectivity of French Guiana (CTG).

Thus, in 9 separate areas, nearly 800 adult trees, 1,500 medium trees and several hundred young plants were cut between August 22 and 24, 2022 by a local company.

Clear cutting actions on isolated populations of Niaouli – GEPOG

A second action in 2023

In February 2023, the GEPOG carried out south of the Corneille savannah, near Kourou. From February 23 to 25, a company thus intervened in order to test the method of control, retained during the previous felling tests, on stands of Niaouli scattered and isolated within a savannah, and not in a dense forest as before in 2022. In 4 separate areas, more than 500 adult trees, 280 medium trees and 300 young plants were cut.

These two actions make it possible to test the management method of the Niaouli which was adopted in two different ecological conditions in order to validate or not a method common to the whole of French Guiana.

A follow-up of regrowth will be carried out in a formal manner. Thus, cutting tests on shoots that reject trunks will be carried out in order to exhaust the trees.