CI launches workshop information package
By Ruel Johnson
Guyana Chronicle
November 23, 2003
CONSERVATION International Guyana earlier this month launched an information package on the `April 5-9, 2002 Guayana Shield Conservation Priority Setting Workshop (Paramaribo)’ with a simple presentation ceremony and lunch at the Grand Savannah Suite, Le Meredien.
Conservation International Guyana’s Executive Director, Major-General (rtd.) Joe Singh, MSS, gave an overview of the workshop.
The GSCPS Workshop saw more than 100 environmental organisation representatives, social scientists and biologists working together in what was dubbed a “consensus-building” approach to determine what steps were necessary to promote and maximise the efficiency of biodiversity management and conservation in the area known as the Guayana Shield.
The Guayana Shield is an area covering some 2.5 million square kilometers of mountains, jungle, savannah and swamp in six countries – Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia.
The tropical rainforest in this area accounts for more than 25 per cent of the global total, the highest for any single area. Eighty to ninety per cent of the forest in this area is in a pristine or relatively untouched state, and has a population of about 1.5-2 million people i.e., a population density of 0.6 to 0.8 person(s) per square kilometer.
The area is home to 20,000 species of vascular plants (crucial in reducing the effect of greenhouse gases); 975 species of birds; 280 species of reptiles; 272 species of amphibians; and 2,200 species of [freshwater] fish.
This makes the area ideal for a programme of economic development which acknowledges and integrates sound environmental management into the overall strategy.
Mr. Singh said that prior to the workshop, there had been no movement in developing a comprehensive strategy to deal with the [Guayana Shield] Region’s ecological conservation.
He stated that problems associated with conservation are usually more economic and political than they are “biological”. He urged that the dedication of all those who were involved in the workshop be rewarded by the necessary political support.
Surinamese environmentalist and Head of the Guiana Shield Initiative, Mr. Wouter Veening said that increasing attention is being paid to the benefits of the preservation of global ecosystems. One example he gave was of the seriousness with which one large European firm, Swiss Reinsurance, was treating climate change.
The company, which [re]insures smaller insurance companies (e.g. those specialising in life, health, or property services), sees global warming as spawning a plethora of phenomena detrimental to the business: skin cancer, flash floods, even a rise in the population of disease vectors, mosquitoes for example.
Mr. Veening said that the tropical forests within the Guayana shield play a crucial role in trapping carbon. Carbon dioxide gas, especially in the form of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), is the main ozone-reducing agent.
He said that in countries like Colombia and Costa Rica, systems are in place to financially reward people who are actively involved in environmental conservation efforts on a performance-based system. He suggested that the practice become more widespread in the areas that are covered by the Guayana Shield.
He singled out the Iwokrama Project for special mention, saying that Guyana was unique in the gesture of giving the over 4,000 hectares of rainforest for the study of sustainable development; something he equated with preserving the goose that laid the golden egg. He expressed the hope that other protected area will eventually be able to share in the lesson of Iwokrama.
In support of Mr. Singh’s call for the political support of the Guayana Shield Project, Mr. Veening threw out the idea for a Ministerial Conference on the effort.
Deputy Resident Representative for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Dr. Thomas Gass, in his remarks, said that the wave of critical and financial support that those concerned with preserving the environment rode during the nineties has ebbed with the coming of the new century. He said that the international donor community was tightening their restrictions on money given for environmental programmes and channeling more of their aid into more pressing issues such as the fight against HIV/AIDS and “global security” concerns. The UNDP official said that this did not take away from the importance of environmental concerns and that today, environmental groups are looking at more and more ways to establish themselves as more independent entities.
He said the international donors and the stakeholders need to get together to reaffirm environmental policy.
In his brief comments, EPA representative, Mr. Ramesh Lilwah reiterated the Government of Guyana’s support for the project and gave a shortlist of the local agencies that were present at the workshop – Lands and Surveys; the EPA (Guyana); the Guyana Forestry Commission; the Geology and Mines Commission; and the North Rupununi Development Board.
Mr. Clayton Hall gave a Power Point presentation summary of the results of the Workshop after which CI Guyana’s Senior Manager for Policy and Planning, Ms. Sandy Griffith, gave the closing remarks.
Presentations of the information package were made to Mr. Veening, Dr. Gass, and Mr. Lilwah. The package includes extensive information on the priority-setting process, the results of the process, recommendations as well as 20 maps showing the distribution of geological formations, industry, as well as flora and fauna.
The Guayana Shield Conservation Priority Setting Workshop was co-sponsored by Conservation International, the Guiana Shield Initiative of the Netherlands Committee for the World Conservation Union (GSI/NC-IUCN), the Caribbean Sub-regional Resource Facility of the UNDP, UNDP Suriname and UNDP Guyana.