GREEN GOLD

The action by the Guyana Government to push for economic incentives at the on-going Koyoto #2 Protocol deliberations in order to maintain global mature rainforests, is to be highly commended. We have been continually lobbying the Guyana Government since the early 1990’s to take this “Green Gold” scheme on board.

While mature rainforests do not fit within the restricted ambit of the current Kyoto Protocol, given that rainforests have millions of tons of greenhouse warming gases stored in them, and also stored in the surrounding soils via their extensive root systems, it is only pertinent that states that refrain from destroying this global resource, and thus benefiting the rest of the Planet, while denying to themselves access to the short term timber, agricultural, and mining potential locked in the rainforests, should be reimbursed for this self-restraint.

Rainforests are not only the most bio-diverse environment on Planet Earth and the lungs of the Planet, and a potential medicinal treasure trove, but they also are instrumental in restricting global climate change. An estimated 20% of current global greenhouse warming gases are caused by rainforest destruction. Instead of empty rhetoric, a viable “rainforest rent” should be paid to the rainforest host nations which are desperate for funds to assist their struggling economies. Only an economic incentive will ensure that the rapidly dwindling rainforests are protected, rather than felled for urgent short term economic needs. The global environment is our common heritage and has no political boundaries. Future generations will rightly condemn us for this wanton destruction of such an amazing and valuable bio-asset.

Yours sincerely,
Mr. Lalu Hanuman,
Secretary of KITE,
83 Northfield House,
London.
SE15 6TN.

For many years I have privately expressed disappointment at the non-occurence of a comprehensive and exhaustive national debate on the merits and demerits of resiting our capital city inland to higher ground, similar to the way Brazilia was relocated by our neighbours to the southwest. The forecasted repositioning of shorelines as a result of global warming should be enough to make us nervous and seek to address this approaching disaster.

The area covered by the untapped, pristine rain forests of Guyana is screaming for development to unleash its potential to catapult the economy of the country into the twenty-first century. Even if the preference is for preservation of the forests, thereby earning carbon credits, the case for this approach can be strengthened by leveraging the harmful environmental impact of developmental programs which will entail extensive deforestation.

Food for thought.

First of all, we cannot have it both ways, we cannot have Bosai investing one billion dollars in Bauxite mining and have a low carbon city at the same time in Linden and it’s surrounding areas.

Contrary to popular belief, Guyana does not have lots of natural resources nor fertile soil,and we need to be cognisant of these two myths, or we will continue to be misguided in our development efforts.

Another group of experts say that the reason why we have such dense jungle growing on top of very poor acid soil, is because of the seven million tons of fertile sand from the Sahara desert that gets blown onto our jungle treetops annually. So our jungle trees are not getting its food from the roots, they are feeding from the conopy.

Cement cannot be made from bauxite waste products, unless that waste has a very concentrated amount of limestone, the main ingredient in cement, only a very small quantity of aluminium and iron is needed in the mix.Ceramics, yes, we may have clays suitable for that.

Guyana is a low carbon country period, do not let these masters of deception who call themselves experts, put us in a state of panic of impending doom, we have a few outdated factories and that’s it, no one is out there slashing and burning the forest, they are all in the city, robbing any businessman that happens by.

Just look what happened when that plane crashed the other day.One of the missing men’s relative came in from Canada, took one flight over the jungle area, caught another flight back home and sent a thank you letter to SN. stating his satisfaction with the help that was given.

Now if that same plane had crashed in the USA or Canada, they would have located it in several hours time stuck in a cornfield. That guy took one look at our jungle and said forgetaboutit, I am outa here.

Then there was this other foreign “expert” who recently gave an analysis of what Guyana needs to do or not doing to develop their agricultural potential.

The last thing we need are more foreign bureaucrats to come tell us what we are not doing right, we need real experts to show us how. Now all this “expert” did was show some Amerindian women in the Rupununi how to plant some peanuts (are you kidding me)

Other than that, Guyana do really need to develop its agricultural potential, but while the idea is right the model and approach is completely wrong, outdated,
inappropriate for our countries’ dynamic and needs to be abondoned.

The government is attempting to repeat and encourage investors to repeat the same mistakes of the Forbes Burnham era. Forbes said “grow more food” they are saying “go invest” same approach, same result will follow.

The President was in New York recently I read, among some of the things he said is that there are a lot of land that was abondoned, leased and subleased, then abondoned too.

What he failed to realise is that all of the farmers who abondoned that land live right in Richmond Hill and many of them were there listening to him and probably saying to themselves “are you kidding me”

Joe.