Dear Editor,
Please allow me to respond to the story that appeared in Stabroek News (11/22/07) under the caption “Group up in arms over alleged removal of mangroves at Corentyne: businessman, others deny claims.”
When the reporter came to do the story I provided her with five documents:
a) Four pages of photographs and text of the three development projects under way in the community and asking why none of the projects have provided a project document to the local NDC of what it is that they are doing and why has the EPA refused to intervene to ask for an Environmental Assessment Impact Study especially in light of the fact that all three projects are located in a sensitive riverain/coastal area, while the Government continues to boast of its environmental record and legislative agenda which includes an Environmental Protection Act, An Environmental Action Plan, an Integrated Coastal Zone Management Action Plan, etc.
b) An eleven-page text and photographs that seeks to outline concerns about the Fishing Coop located on the south bank of the creek, its present expansion project without permission of the NDC or an Environmental Impact Assessment Study for the dredging of the river and the removal of the courida and old growth mangrove.
c) Three pages consisting of a petition from the community asking for the intervention of the Lands and Surveys in the matter of encroachment, and a letter from the Chairman of the Sea Defence Board indicating the status of the lands in question.
d) A 55-page paper read at the Sixth Sir Arthur Lewis Conference on Public Policy and Good Governance, University of the West Indies, in March, 2005, detailing some of the activities of the Fishing Coop and asking how and why members refuse to pay any taxes, don’t have to register with NIS yet expect subsidised water and electricity, free education for their children and demand services from the NDC. It’s a criminal act to refuse to register with the NIS.
While my paper estimates that some $20 billion worth of fish passed through the coop between 1988 and 2003 while not a cent of this went to the GRA. I am also allowed to say that the Coop is now in court with GPL for a bill in excess of $20,000,000.
e) a 75-page study for the Caribbean Regional Environmental Programme under the supervision of the EPA detailing concerns about global warming and the consequences of sea level rise in the area as a result of environmental abuse/degradation. The Fishing Coop is the only group of residents that refused to speak to us in the conduct of the study.
Despite its sad state I still depend on my local NDC for both services and protection. When the projects started I went to the NDC to ask for a project document on each. None was available.
I live in the community and twice had to witness the Sea Defence Board with sand bags trying to stem the spring tide from over flowing the banks of the river. This is my immediate and personal concern.
As a citizen I am also concerned about the rule of law, ie the statutes and rules we put in place to protect us from unregulated and illegal undertakings that are destructive and cause harm to all, including me.
I would have thought that the reporter as a professional would have been interested in at least the acts, statutes and other regulations in place included the ones I named and quoted in my documents that are so freely and easily set aside in the projects named, none of which is raised with any of the fishermen she interviewed.
While it is a debate about development and who gets to do what, I would also like to believe it is a debate about the rule of law – including transparency, consultation and the equitable use of public resources.
This is interesting in the light of the fact that Ministers Benn and Westford are quoted as giving one project the “go ahead”.
For them to have said that means that they would not have read my documents or that the rule of law of this government’s own making is of no consequence.
Yours faithfully,
Rishee Thakur
