Working quietly from its Queenstown, Georgetown headquarters Conservation International Guyana (CIG) has been helping to create the conditions that would facilitate the sustainable development of the Amerin-dian communities in southern Guyana, the Kanuku Mountains and those near its conservation concession located in the Upper Essequibo while at the same time conserving the country's rainforest.
It does this according to Maj Gen (rtd) Joe Singh, CI's executive director for Guyana, through working with the indigenous communities to empower them to participate meaningfully in the management of the protected areas being established. And more importantly in developing community-based alternative income-generating activities, utilising non-timber forest products, appropriate technology, eco-tourism, and craft.
Singh has been at the helm of CIG since 2001 and stresses that conservation is not just about flora and fauna but also about human security and human development. Under his leadership, CIG has acquired a 200, 000 acre Conservation Concession in the Upper Essequibo Region. CIG intends to demonstrate the link between conservation and national development and to develop a model for use in other countries like Guyana which has some of its natural forest still intact.
CIG has been in Guyana since 1993. Because of the experience and credibility CIG has built up since it was established, the Guyana government, when it decided to set up the National Protected Areas System (NPAS), invited the organisation to be the lead agency in the process of developing the Kanuku Mountains as a protected area.
The Kanuku Mountains together with an area of south Guyana, Roraima, Orinduik, Kaieteur and Shell Beach are the anchors of the NPAS. In addition to anchors, conservation regimes are in use at the Iwokrama Rainforest Project and CIG's conservation concession, developed in collaboration with the Guyana Forestry Commission and the communities at Apoteri, Rewa and Crash- water, for which CIG, through a timber sales agreement pays the government royalty but does not cut down any trees in the area.
In an exclusive interview with Current Affairs, Singh explained that his organisation's experience and credibility had been gained during the making of the Harpy Eagle film that was shot in the Kanuku Mountains, its interaction with the Amerindian communities in the Nappi area allowed it to play a facilitating role in the development of the balata craft community-based enterprise - now known as the Nappi Balata Artisans and the Rapid Assessment Programme conducted in 1993 of the Western Kanuku Mountains as part of a European Union funded impact study on what would be the implications the road to Brazil would have on the people and the biodiversity of that part of the mountains.
The conservation concession
Singh said that CIG's main focus over the past three years has been on its conservation concession in which there are no inhabitants but that the inhabitants of the nearest communities - Apoteri, Rewa and Crashwater - use the resources of the area and fish in the Essequibo River which, though it runs through the concession is not part of the concession itself.
According to Singh, the concession is intended to be a model that would attract more developed countries to support countries like Guyana which still have a lot of their natural forest intact and using a mechanism like the Kyoto Protocol which involves the purchasing of carbon credits. He said that those are initiatives that countries like Guyana should aggressively pursue in partnership with Brazil, Suriname and other countries which still have large amounts of their tropical forest intact and which are being influenced by the conservation movements in the developed countries not to exploit without putting in place mechanisms to compensate for not exploiting them.
"We want Guyana to use its conservation concession in partnership with CI as a country that still has its natural forest intact as a suitable investment from which to earn carbon credits."
The Kyoto Protocol provides for countries which cannot reduce their carbon emission to the benchmark levels to compensate for that by purchasing carbon credits to maintain and sustain the forest which has the role of absorbing carbon and releasing oxygen.
However, Singh said that the proposal has its challenges and difficulties as a standing forest which is already matured will absorb less carbon than a young forest or a growing forest. As a consequence he said that people tend to invest more in agro-forestry than standing forests and it is one of the challenges that has to be faced. "How do we get people to recognise that in the absence of any large scale agro-forestry programme the answer is not to cut down our standing forests in order to grow forests" since "once you start interfering with the forest you begin to impact negatively on the eco-system."
He explained that once mature trees are cut down the degradation commences and that he sees agro-forestry as an option for the Intermediate Savannahs where there are now experiments being conducted in growing the Paulonia trees on a large scale.
"We have to market the conservation concession as a tool for conservation as well as an investment option for those who through mechanisms like the Kyoto Protocol can buy credit."
Singh said that CIG is not just leaving the forest untouched but that it has an obligation in the five-year management plan to cut transect lines and use the lines for documentation and research on the behaviour and diversity of the forest. "So we have rangers who will ensure those transect lines are opened up and maintained and they use the Global Positioning System (GPS) to record their observations of the flora and fauna which would help us to understand how the forest in these areas behave."
The Voluntary Community Investment Fund
As part of its social responsibility Singh said that CI has voluntarily established a Voluntary Community Investment Fund to which Conservation International has pledged US$10000 a year to assist the Apoteri, Rewa and Crashwater communities in developing community-based enterprises that can impact their socio-economic status and well-being as well as provide an income.
"We do the assessment through a committee that includes representatives from the three communities, the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, and the Northern Rupununi District Development Board." He said that the process has already made equipment available to the three communities. He said that the community at Apoteri was provided with equipment that will help in reducing the damage caused by acoushi ants; at Rewa equipment was provided to help the residents improve their home environment and in the case of the Crashwater, which is located on a tributary of the Essequibo River, to improve the accessibility at low tide from the river to the community. "Based on their requests and our evaluation we have already made a $1 million worth of equipment available to them."
He said that the communities have a number of other projects in the pipeline such as nature tourism and the committee is working with Rewa on the development of an appropriate eco-tourism lodge at the junction of the Rewa and Rupununi Rivers. Low impact tourism would allow for small numbers of tourists at a time to enjoy at nights the rich bio-diversity of the Rewa River and observe jaguars, the giant river turtles and giant otters, the black caimans and abundant aqua-fauna.
"This of course would be a community- based enterprise so that the benefit will accrue to the community and they will have to do this in partnership with the established tour operators so that the extension to Rewa would be part and parcel of the partnership arrangement."
He said other considerations include the ability of the community to absorb the contributions being made and gaining the required expertise to manage tourism, to share the benefits of the project in a way that benefits the entire community, and this requires building capacity in areas such as interpretative guiding, hospitality skills and financial management. He said that the committee also plans to help the communities in the area of agriculture by improving yields so that less land is used and with agro-processing so that they produce value-added products rather than shipping their produce in bulk to the local markets.
Singh says that his organisation also supports the conservation clubs, workshops for teachers and summer camps during the August holidays. He said that though bio-diversity and environmental education to a limited extent is integrated into the curriculum at the primary and secondary school level, "we get involved with a lot of practical work utilising the landscape with which they are familiar."
The Kanuku Mountains
About the CIG's work in the Kanuku Mountains where it has the lead agency role, Singh said that it has spent the last three years introducing the organisation to the communities, building confidence between CIG, the communities and other stakeholders and developing methodologies in full consultation with the stakeholders for moving the process forward.
"It is a learning process, it is an iterative process. There are models in other countries and we have expertise in Washington DC, (where CI is headquartered) that is made available to us so that we have built capacity among the local staff."
CIG's staff is all Guyanese and 90 per cent of the staff in the field at Lethem come from the indigenous communities as translators in the Macusi and Wapisiana languages and they do power point presentations and can use the GPS instrument for navigation and co-ordination purposes. "We have developed this expertise and we are sharing these experiences with other groups such as the Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society and Kaieteur National Park Board."
In relation to the co-operation with the Kaieteur Board, Singh said that his organisation is training two Potomonas from the Pakaraimas who were invited to work along with its team in the Rupununi so that when they have to do the same kind of consultations they would have gained the experience from working with CIG.
Singh explained that the consultations being conducted with the communities are aimed "at ensuring that the communities are fully empowered and feel equipped to participate fully in the process."
He said that so far CIG has established how the communities use the Kanuku Mountains as a source of food - farming, hunting and fishing - they obtain their pharmaceutical products and where they have sites of archaeological and cultural importance. At the same time he said CIG has been building capacity among the leadership of the eighteen communities identified as using the resources of the Kanuku area. He said that the Macusi community uses the northern side of the mountains and the Wapisiana the southern side.
Singh said that CIG had to disabuse the communities of the negative propaganda about the process which alleged that CI wanted to control the land and that the government wanted to deny them access to the area. "We are in the happy position now where persons understand and appreciate why the mountains need to have a form of management which conserves the bio-diversity and the critical eco-systems, like the tributaries that flow off the mountains into the major rivers, the species which are either rare or endangered or should be conserved like the Harpy Eagle, the jaguar (described as indicator species) ... ."
He explained that it is very important in terms of the local knowledge of the people and their familiarity with the landscape that they are seen as integral to the process.
Understanding the need for protected areas
"To give you an idea of how the community resources evaluation was done we built capacity within the community to help them understand what the exercise is designed to do so as to help them to manage the area and to ensure that their traditional access to food and other things they use are not denied them but also they understood what is meant by sustainable extraction so that they are not over-fishing or over-harvesting and so shooting themselves in the feet."
Following this, Singh said CIG then developed with the full involvement of the communities a spatial representation of the likely impact on areas of high bio-diversity importance so as to determine which areas need to be conserved or protected, which areas would have to be allowed for traditional use and the establishment of buffer zones to protect the inner core.
This process of zoning Singh said would take another two years as what is being done is identifying a project implementation area and together with the community and sectoral representatives such as forestry, mining, environmental protection and agriculture arrive at a consensus on what areas are going to be conserved and how it will be managed so that there is sustainable development, bio-diversity conservation, reduction or elimination of species loss due to negative impact, eco-system integrity to achieve a kind of balance between traditional use, sustainable use and conservation.
Singh noted that as Guyana is a signatory to the Convention on Bio-Diversity there are certain benchmarks that have to be adopted and implemented by 2010 such as consolidation and expansion of the protected areas system so that there are conservation channels linking these "islands" of conservation and the establishment of trans-boundary parks between linking the protected areas to similar areas in Suriname, Brazil and Venezuela.
"Internally you look at establishment of the anchors, then the connectivity (between the anchors), then the trans-boundary (parks), then the regional and global." He explained that regional collaboration involves the linking of the Guiana Shield countries which includes those between Colombia to Amapa in Brazil. The formation of the Guiana Shield is about four billion years old and it has very high endemisms which are only found in these parts.
"So", Singh said, "there has to be in addition to the internal collaboration you have the trans-boundary collaboration, then you have the regional and then the global collaboration." He stressed that it is important the people understand the scale of this programme of conservation and development.
Conservation is about human security and development
Singh observed that the conservation programme is not a stand alone project but is in tandem with other global initiatives for human security and human development and this is why it is so important that people understand and appreciate that "conservation is not just about the birds and bees and butterflies and so on but about human security - clean air, clean water, healthy living, job creation linked to things like the use of non-timber forest products so that you don't have to destroy the forest in order to create wealth."
As a result he said that CIG with the help of GO-INVEST, the hospitality association the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED) is developing alliances and putting the agencies in touch with communities so a process is facilitated which also ensures human security and human development through community-based enterprises such as the balata artisans at Nappi.
"Now this is a model which we are using and documenting the lessons learnt so that other potential enterprises like tourism could benefit from the lessons learnt in building capacity."
Singh said that the Nappi Balata Artisans now manage themselves, have registered their enterprise, have access to financing provided by IPED, are linked through Go-INVEST to markets in the Caribbean and are marketing their produce on the Internet through CIG's facility at Lethem. Last year the Nappi Artisans exported US$12 000 in craft products to the United States of America and had domestic sales of $1 million. Singh said that the group attended trade affairs in the Caribbean and "we are very proud of what they have been able to achieve."
"So in a sense we have gotten them to a point where they are confident they are managing themselves because we also maintain a linkage with so that if they run into any problems we can point them in the right direction."
He said that one example of the assistance they have been giving is the help CIG provided in assisting them to submit a proposal to the BCCP programme run by CIDA and they successfully applied for and obtained a motor cycle funded through the Canada Fund that was acquired through Ming's Products and Services at cost. He said that as a consequence of acquiring the motor cycle the community now has mobility to take its products to Lethem to the aircraft, to the bus or to the tourists so that they can now augment their income.
He said that the balata could be used for other things than just making craft and this is how the Institute for Applied Science and Technology for example, could play a role by experimenting with material like balata and seeing what opportunities exist internally and externally for its use.
The Guiana Protected Area System Project
Singh explained that at the moment in the Kanuku Mountains, CIG is waiting for the Guiana Protected Areas System (GPAS), funded by the Guyana government and the World Bank and which has been in gestation for about eight or nine years. GPAS is part of the NPAS.
He said that GPAS floundered during the Janet Jagan presidency when the people at Chenapau complained that the Kaieteur National Park was being extended without their full involvement. As a consequence the World Bank pulled out and indicated that unless it was satisfied that mechanisms are in place to deal with issues like land titles, of empowerment of the indigenous peoples, and other related issues it would resuscitate the programme.
He said that as result of the initiative to deal with the land issues and Amerindian empowerment over recent years, the project was resuscitated about a year ago and a World Bank team visited here and engaged the government and other stakeholders including the local communities and developed a project appraisal document which focused on four components. The first of these components deals with the establishment of a project implementation unit in the EPA to oversee the whole evolution of the process, build capacity and researching and pulling together legislation. The second component will deal with the passage of protected area legislation and the building of capacity and institutional mechanisms to oversee this process. The third component will deal with the pilot implementation site at Shell Beach where the Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society is the lead agency and the fourth will deal with the Kanuku Mountains Project Implementation area where CI is the lead agency. The first stage of the project will last about five years and cost about US$6 million.
Singh said that the project appraisal was completed about two weeks ago and there are certain procedural mechanisms to be put in place such as an aide memoire, the creation of a legal instrument in the absence of the protected area legislation which would facilitate the process, the declaration of the protected areas and the required protocol for the involvement of the shareholders at the national, regional and local levels along with the lead agency.
"There are certain benchmarks which the World Bank/GEF (Global Environment Fund) project have which has to be satisfied before moving on to the next stage. In that way the necessary checks and balances are there so that the indigenous peoples do not feel that they are being ridden over rough shod but are full and active partners in the process."
Singh said that the sector agencies such as the EPA, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission and the Forestry Commission are all part of the process. He said that it is hoped that with assiduous application on the part of the local agencies and the World Bank the GEF board would approve the project so that it could kick in as early as September.
Consultations
While it is waiting for the project to be approved, Singh said that CIG is continuing its engagement with the communities and has already met with the regional administration at Lethem to bring them up to date as to the preparation for the project and to involve them in disseminating this information to the indigenous communities of the Kanuku and the regional democratic councillors. He said too that before the end of next month CIG intends to re-engage the touchoas.
Singh explained that one of the structures that have to be established as part of the GPAS project is a regional steering committee on which would be represented the regional democratic councils and other non-governmental agencies operating in Region 9 at the regional level and at the community level a community representative group that would be representing the 18 communities. The two bodies would be involved in the discussions, consultations and negotiations on the areas to be protected and how they will be managed. "These protected areas will be managed through a process which reflects co-management. Capacity has been built to ensure that the indigenous peoples are represented on the management of the protected area and the technical support provided by CI would be the aspect of co-management."
He said that the area would be managed almost entirely by the local people but that CI would remain engaged until the required capacity has been built up and the required competencies are in place.
Job creation
Singh explained in addition to declaring the area protected, people would have to be trained as rangers, and monitoring stations have to be established with the full involvement of the communities which would require funding. To address these needs Singh explained that a trust fund would be established to which the World Bank, CI and other donor agencies, institutions and foundations that have an interest in supporting countries like Guyana would contribute. He explained too that the fund has to reach a level of about US$20-25 million so that the interest accruing from that would be used to finance the cost of managing the area. A board will administer the trust fund and the protected area managers would have to put forward their work programmes for funding.
Singh said that the protected areas could also generate income from activities such as tourism and other opportunities such as organic agriculture, inland fishing, farming, and non-timber forest products. "These are all opportunities which have to be explored and exploited. The rule of thumb would be what is truly sustainable and to what extent the community would be benefiting from the initiative and, overall, to the economy of the country as it relates to the comparative advantage that we have using the protected areas to solidify our position as signatories and enjoy the support of a whole lot of countries."
He added that jobs would be created through all of these initiatives and that Iwok-rama has already trained four rangers from the communities of Apoteri, Rewa and Crashwater for the conservation concession and they will share their experiences with those who have to be trained for the Kanuku Mountains.
He said too that Iwokrama is looking at a shorter ranger training programme of about three to four months and a number of persons from the areas are being considered to attend this programme.
He said that the job creation initiative cuts across gender in the sense that many of the women are involved in community-based enterprises like sewing, agriculture and hospitality skills to support the tourism industry for all the areas. "In fact the World Bank project does make provision for providing seed money for the community-based enterprises."
Konashen District
Singh said that CIG is also working with the Wai-Wai in the Konashen district. The tribe has given an absolute grant to the district which covers some 1.5 million acres. The district is located in the south-westerly most part of Guyana bordering Brazil and is inhabited by a community of some 300 persons. However, he said that it is known that there are uncontacted Indians who operate as hunters and gatherers and are nomadic. The Wai-Wais know that they are there but we have deliberately not made contact with them for fear of transmitting diseases like chicken pox and measles to them.
Singh said too that there are small groups of Indians from Brazil who have been displaced by mining activities in their country.
Singh said that the Wai-Wais without any prompting from CIG have determined that their future is tied to the conservation of the district. "Concurrent with the grant from the Government of Guyana has been a request from the community through the Touchao for assistance to enable them to set up a proper management regime for the district."
Singh said that CIG was aware of threats to the area, and the Wai-Wais have been exposed to them, caused by illegal mining. He said that Konashen is the watershed of the Essequibo and they are its custodians and are responsible as well for maintaining the integrity of the border area, pointing out that the kind of mining that takes place can actually change the direction of tributaries which flow down the hill.
He said that the grant gives ownership to the Wai-Wais of everything above surface while the state retains responsibility for the sub-surface minerals and alluvial deposits. However, he observed that ownership of the district imposes the obligation to ensure the integrity of the eco-systems and maintaining the areas of high endemism of species and plants and managing the resource base. For example, he said, the Wai-Wais do not kill birds but stun birds to collect selected feathers. Nor, he said, do they cut down palm trees but climb the trees to cut down the fruit.
"They already have their own traditional methods of conservation. We are not teaching them anything. All they want is assistance in putting them in a frame that is manageable and providing the support, documentation, equipment and training to do monitoring and enforcement. CIG is not in any way imposing itself. It is facilitating the Wai-Wai management of this area."
Singh said that the Wai-Wais have already been exposed to a form of nature tourism as ornithologists have been taken into the area to observe the huge bio-diversity and the beauty of the landscape and the uniqueness of the Wai-Wai. "They are different from the other indigenous tribes of Guyana. They are the only tribe living in the heart of the rainforest and they thrive on that. They see the trees and the animals around them as having the spirits of the ancestors and so there is a connectivity between themselves and the flora and fauna and there is an interdependence which one has to recognise. So far from teaching them about conservation, they will be teaching us. So this is a two-way exercise. We share the technology appropriate for the purpose."
Use of Appropriate Technology
An example of this sharing, Singh said, was the way CIG responded to a request from the community for a generator. He explained that the request was for a generator such as that used on the coast but the cost of transportation and fuel was prohibitive and so made it unsustainable. He explained that the cost to charter an aircraft from Ogle to Gunn Strip is US$2200/$440000.
As a result, Singh said that CIG put together a think-tank with representatives from IAST, the Guyana Energy Authority and a contractor for whom CIG had advertised, who supplies photovoltaic equipment to design a photovoltaic system that provides light to every home and a communal building.
The women of the district prompted the request since they were engaged in household chores during the day; they need light to do their handicraft at night. Also, they said that the children would be able to do their homework and other studies at night.
A system was designed and contractor, Jerome De Freitas and Sons provided the labour, maintenance manuals and trained six persons to manage the equipment. The Wai-Wais mobilised $400,000 towards meeting the $6 million tab for designing and transporting the equipment to Konashen. Other contributors included a group from Jersey in the United Kingdom which was influenced to contribute US$4000.
Singh said that through a German agency, CIG contributed a water distribution system powered by a submersible pump that pumps water to an overhead tank and from which the homes are provided with water.
Singh said that the photovoltaic system designed for Konashen could be adapted for use in other hinterland communities which are outside the reach of the national grid.
Public Awareness Programme
With regard to its public awareness programme for the hinterland communities, Singh said that information on the NPAS and related information requires a lot of legwork and involves travel by boat, aircraft and all-terrain vehicles to reach the various communities.
The information, he said, is provided through newsletters, brochures, posters, pamphlets, booklets that are targeted to schools, the National Library and the University of Guyana Library.
Singh said that CIG works closely with the EPA, the Ministry of Tourism, the World Wildlife Fund and other like-minded agencies in promoting awareness about conservation.
More specifically for the coastland, Singh said that CIG through a donation from the US-based company, Disney World, and in collaboration with the National Parks Commission, is setting up the Jenman Education Centre that is to be located in the Botanic Gardens.
He said that Centre would provide a good overview of environmental education and visitors would be able to learn how they could support the local effort by being more responsible citizens.
He said that the establishment of the centre would provide opportunities for school children to hear talks on the flora and fauna of Guyana which would complement the animals, reptiles and birds they would have seen at the zoo. He said that CIG has signed an agreement with the University of Guyana which would allow the students there in the environmental and tourism programmes to work with the Centre's administration in hosting the lectures for the school children and other visitors.
Singh said that CIG also works closely with government at the policy level and in meeting its commitments under the various conventions related to the environment to which it is a signatory. It also works closely with CI's offices in Suriname and Brazil in helping the government to fulfill its commitments to the Guiana Shield Initiative.
He said too that CI works closely with the Tourism ministry as well as with organisations such as the THAG and the tourism operators on tourism related issues. It recently organised a workshop that looked at the various tourism products and compiled a report which assessed them and identified those that could be jump-started. Current Affairs understands that the report is expected to be circulated shortly to the participating agencies for their comments and consideration.