Guyana wins best eco-region award
Guyana has beaten out Belize, Dominica, and Venezuela to win an international award run by the Caribbean World Magazine. The award was presented to Guyana's High Commissioner to the Court of St James, Laleshwar Singh, by Her Royal Highness, Princess Katarina at a ceremony on March 5, at the Palace Suite, Royal Garden Hotel, London. A release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Guyana copped the award for "the best Caribbean eco-region" at the 1997 Caribbean World Annual International Awards ceremony. It said that the readers of British, Caribbean and other international award-winning lifestyle and travel magazines were invited to vote on their choice of the "Best" in a series of nominated categories in the Caribbean. The release said that the High Commissioner, in a television interview upon receiving the award, had remarked that the award "would undoubtedly stimulate greater interest and awareness in Europe and elsewhere of the eco-tourism assets of Guyana." It noted too that the Guyana High Commission had been very active in promoting Guyana as a tourist destination by making readily available tourism brochures, posters and other information to tourist operators and other interested persons. Recent coverage of the test match between the West Indies and England at Bourda had "also been very positive in terms of highlighting Guyana's stature as the best eco-region in the Caribbean," the release said. He explained that the move to establish the FSI did not mean that the Foreign Ministry was turning way from the scholarships which were on offer from the University of the West Indies and friendly governments like those of the United Kingdom, Germany, India, Malaysia, Chile among others. "These are valuable opportunities and we must still try to send people as far as we can to them," Searwar said. But, he added, it was very often difficult to release serving officers for the periods required to attend these courses. Another consideration, Searwar said, was that the imperatives of the governments of the countries in which the training was being offered might be different to those of Guyana. While advantage should be taken of these opportunities, "we need to devise, using our own resources, financial and teaching, courses which suit our very specific needs," Searwar said. The courses to be taught include economics and negotiating techniques. The first set of courses, Searwar told Stabroek News after the ceremony, should get underway towards the end of April. The teaching resources, he said, would be drawn from Guyanese with international experience who had returned home, the international organisations present in Guyana and a large number of other regional and international organisations which have pledged their assistance to the FSI when it came on stream. Among those organisations were the Organisation of American States, the Commonwealth and the European Union.
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