It becomes clearer with each passing day that nothing will be allowed to stand in the way of the bullet train-like development of the oil and gas sector. In this, the government is at one with ExxonMobil and its partners. This determination supplies the subtext for statutory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) inexplicably denying the need for environment impact studies among other derelictions. It also explains how a Florida, USA-based company which was merely in the throes of planning a shore base on the West Demerara could mow down acres of protected mangroves with impunity and not be held accountable.
The latest outrage is the dumping of mud from the dredging of the Demerara River on the fishing grounds of impoverished artisanal fishers. This activity is expected to continue until the end of the year. In interviews with this newspaper last week, the fishermen expressed an essential truth – they were powerless to restrain the indignities of being barred from their traditional fishing areas and having their pens fouled with all manner of waste dredged up from the floor of the Demerara.
“Fishermen lives don’t matter!”, one of them declared during an interview with Stabroek News, a refrain readily adopted by others.
“The dredging raising up all these things (trash and seaweed) on the ocean floor and that’s what we finding in our fish pens and just little bit of fish,” said a fisherman from Diamond, who wished to remain anonymous.
The plight of the fishermen demonstrates their abandonment by their neighbourhood democratic councils, the Region Three council, the Ministry of Agriculture and the government. Apparently, the Ministry’s only intervention in this fiasco to date via its Fisheries Department is to discuss compensation for affected fishermen. That is most unacceptable.
In the July 8th 2022 edition of this newspaper, civil society activist Janette Bulkan wrote a letter querying why there had been no Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for this project given the gargantuan amounts of mud to be removed for the enlargement of the mouth of the river and the prospect that this would upturn the livelihoods of the fishermen.
Ms Bulkan stated: “By its nature, dredging disturbs the natural environment and, here, affects the livelihoods of fishermen. Fishers have both legal and customary rights to their traditional fishing grounds. I cannot find any call by the Environmental Protection Agency to demand an Environmental Impact Assessment. Where is the dredged mud to be discharged, between now and the end of 2022?”
She also called for an explanation from the EPA on why no EIA was required and urged the protection of the legal and customary rights of fishers to their traditional fishing grounds.
There was no response to this letter from the EPA, the Ministry of Agriculture or the government.
Stabroek News contacted NRG Holdings Incorporated, the company that commissioned the dredging in relation to the likely impact on fishermen. In a news item which appeared in the July 8, 2022 edition of the Sunday Stabroek, NRG Holdings said that extensive consultations were held with fisherfolk in the area. It also said that it had submitted an Environmental Social Management Plan (ESMP) to the EPA and that all outcomes related to the project were considered and discussions held with fisherfolk pertaining to traditional fishing grounds.
“The impact of the project on the fisherfolk and their livelihood was a focus of the Environmental Social Management Plan. The plan has accessed the available fisheries data for the area from the Department of Fisheries. This was supplemented by collecting landing site data to understand fish stocks and the landings in the area,” NRG said in its statement to the Sunday Stabroek.
It is unclear what the EPA has done with NRG’s ESMP but what was clear to Stabroek News when it journeyed on Tuesday with one of the fishermen about one and a half miles from the Demerara River channel was that the fishing grounds are being polluted by the tonnes of mud being spewed. Fishermen and their families are suffering.
It isn’t being argued here that the endangering of the fishing grounds of dozens of fishermen by this dredging should halt a project of the scale of US$600m intended to offer shore-based services to ExxonMobil’s oil extraction operations. What is being contended is that the fishermen and their families whose daily bread is hanging by a thread should not have suffered a loss of income as a result of the dredging which has been permitted by the state. The fishermen had already suffered body blows from low catches in recent months. This has now been compounded by extensive upturning of their fishing grounds which could have long-term impacts.
It behooved the Ministry of Agriculture in tandem with NRG to ensure that fishermen using these grounds were reasonably compensated so that they lost no income from the point the dredging started. There is no evidence of any such plan from the ministry and NRG to cover the entire period of dredging and its aftermath.
The Ministry of Agriculture and its Fisheries Department have been impenetrable as it relates to a series of disturbing occurrences in the sector. It must act immediately to relieve the plight of the fishermen affected by the dredging and determine the manner of compensation. The ministry must also undertake a detailed survey of the fishermen from the various communities on the East and West Demerara who say they have been affected by this dredging and determine how to compensate them for the period that they will be affected.
