Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr Veetal Rajkumar’s letter published in the November 7, 2013 edition of Stabroek News entitled ‘No basis for presuming higher deforestation is due to widespread illegal mining.’
Mr Rajkumar seeks to surreptitiously dispel the observed increase in Guyana’s deforestation rates with irrelevant facts and speculative assertions. Mr Rajkumar states that the nominal 4,341 ha increase in deforested lands from Period 2 to Period 3 as a result of increased mining activity suggests a real increase of only 2,907 ha since mining infrastructure accounted for 1,434 ha of the nominal figure. This assertion is nonsensical given that whatever description is assigned to the associated mining activities that cause deforestation (pit excavation, road construction, workers’ camp construction, pollution of waterways (indirectly), etc) the desired measurable effect remains constant, ie quantifying trees that no longer exist. Mr Rajkumar further suggests that in Period 3 since rapid-eye 5m resolution satellite imagery was used instead of the previous reports where 30m resolution imagery was used, “a greater level of detail and accuracy was achieved which may [emphasis mine] account for some of the observed increase in deforestation rate.” This may seem like a credible argument but I contend that it cannot withstand expert scrutiny if ever those results become public information. Editor, I invite your readers to explore the most basic, free version of the Google Maps/Satellite software and one can observe that both at 20m (30m not available) and 5m, individual standing trees can be clearly defined. As a tangentially relevant aside, it is particularly interesting to witness the deforestation levels in Haiti as against neighbouring Dominican Republic.
Editor, it seems that Mr Rajkumar as Head of the Policy Planning Unit of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment and his superiors have some tough decisions to make regarding pursuing conflicting national development agendas. From a purely short to medium-term economic standpoint I tend to agree with Mr Rajkumar when he highlights mining’s important 11% contribution to our GDP (US$716M) during Period 3. At the same time, Government continues to place much emphasis on and pay much lip-service to the LCDS and REDD+ as important initiatives, particularly given that these projects form much of their architect’s professional legacy and the base of his many publicised and highly prized honorary conferments. However, Mr Rajkumar bemoans the fact that the Period 3 increase in deforestation, and the associated inevitable loss of revenues, should be weighed against the Guyana-Norway Joint Concept Note that expresses “insisting on such strict limitations would probably yield an insufficient incentive structure for the people of Guyana to stick to a low-deforestation development path, as the economic downsides would be dis-appropriate to the incentive offered.” Editor, it is unfortunate that Guyana’s leaders think that they can bamboozle our people and the Norwegian taxpayers with the idea that it is possible to simultaneously pursue two separate development strategies where the actions necessary to attain each goal create an antinomy. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
Yours faithfully,
George Bulkan
