Sunday editorial missed the fact that the need for a workable arrangement between miners and loggers has been recognized for years

I suggest that your editorial ‘Respect’ (Sunday Stabroek, February 7) misses a major point when it attributes the implicit terms of reference of the President’s new Land Use Committee to the Norway-Guyana MoU.  The desirability of a workable arrangement between miners and loggers has been recognized for many years. The need for integrated (that is, cross-sectoral) land use planning is stated in section III.B.2 Land use policies in chapter 29 of the National Development Strategy (NDS 1995-6) – “The formulation and implementation of a National Plan on Land Use, based in present land use patterns and possible opportunities are critical… This plan should take into consideration physical, environmental, economic, social, cultural and demographic factors from a Guyanese perspective.”  And section II.B.2.c.of Chapter 18 of the NDS notes that “the Town and Country Planning Act (Cap.20:01) provides machinery for physical development planning and land use control.”

Soon after the non-partisan multi-stakeholder formulation of the NDS, German aid supported the development of national capacity for integrated land use planning during 1996-9.  A successful pilot project was demonstrated in Region 10 and one of the senior European technicians from that project now resides in Guyana.  Also, people trained in the quasi-autonomous government agencies during that project can still be found in those agencies such as the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission.  And the Guyana Integrated Natural Resources Information System (GINRIS) developed during the project still exists.

At a political level, the Guyana Natural Resources Agency (GNRA) had a dual function of promoting investment and coordinating to prevent land use conflicts.  Investment promotion is now nominally with GO-INVEST and coordinating is by the Natural Resources and Environment Advisory Committee (NREAC, involving EPA, GFC, GGMC and GLSC) until recently chaired by Navin Chandarpal.  GNRA acted and NREAC acts as the technical secretariat for the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Natural Resources.  I understand that NREAC meets weekly.  So the country is well supplied by technical agencies and coordinating mechanisms, and the need for and role of a new presidential committee are not evident.

At the agency level, the GFC is committed by the National Forest Policy 1997 and the National Forest Plan 2001 to develop and implement a strategic forest allocation plan.  A draft forest zonation paper was being finalized at the time of the National Environmental Action Plan 2001-2005, section 2.2.  The National Forest Policy also refers to a comprehensive land use plan.  None of these plans have been published, more than a decade after the policy was approved.  The GFC claims in its various proposals to the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility to have detected 24,428 ha deforested by mining in 2007-8.  The GFC has not described how it has achieved such precision, while apparently not detecting the illegal airstrip being constructed in the Corentyne at the same time, which is larger than Ogle airport’s runways.  The Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners’ Association claimed that deforestation due to mining was only 4,000 ha, with the estimate most recently reduced to 2400 ha, less than one-tenth of the GFC estimate.  Like the GFC, the GGDMA does not say how it has arrived at its figures.

Just how the miners are expected to know what they should do and must not do is unclear.  The full texts of the Forests Act 1953 (cap.67:01) as amended to 1998 and of the Mining Act 1989 (cap.65:01) are accessible through the website of GINA.  However, neither the Forest Regulations 1953 nor the principal Mining Regulations are apparently web-accessible through GINA (nor indeed is any other secondary legislation), nor can they found on the GFC or GGMC websites.  The Mining (Amendment) Regulations of 2003, dealing with environment protection and control, were printed and widely circulated during the two years before they came into force in 2005 but the principal Mining Regulations are more difficult to locate.

Exactly what is or was the purpose of the proposed delay of six months after issue of a mining licence before production could begin?  The proposal was not apparently issued formally by the Prime Minister as Minister for Mining, nor by the Board of Directors of the GGMC.  The proposal for GFC intervention was not issued formally by the President as Minister of Forests nor by the Minister of Agriculture as junior Minister for Forestry nor by the Board of Directors of the GFC.  As pointed out previously, the President has no role in the National Constitution or in law to intervene in the mining sector.  Nor does the President have any power to deal formally with citizens’ petitions, except in relation to the Prerogative of Mercy.  It is the National Assembly which can accept and respond to citizens’ petitions.

The way in which the various elements of the government have floated, denied, and retracted the proposal about delaying the start of mining is not an auspicious demonstration of good governance.  Besides unsettling both miners and loggers, this muddle is now known to the agencies in Norway with responsibility for the MoU with Guyana signed in November 2009.  Surely the much-travelling politicians are aware of the effects on Guyana’s international reputation.

Yours faithfully,
Janette Bulkan

Editor’s note

Dr Bulkan’s points about the technical agencies and coordinating mechanisms which already exist and obviate the need for a land-use committee are well taken. However, the editorial also had a larger point to make which went beyond mining and forestry specifically, about the absence of an overarching policy framework for the interior, which takes into account not only leading stakeholders such as miners, foresters and Amerindian communities, but also issues such as border security, hinterland roads, hydroelectric projects and the like – and, of course, environmental considerations. Whatever environmental legislation is on the statute books, and however inaccessible or otherwise it might be, its enforcement, particularly in mining areas, has been far from systematic. In view of this and owing to the fact that previously there has been no policy framework setting priorities, the MOU with Norway appears to mark a new direction since it gives precedence to environmental concerns following on necessarily from agreeing to preserve the forest.