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WORLD RAINFOREST MOVEMENT
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URGENT ACTION: GUYANA
PLEASE SIGN ON TO THIS OPEN LETTER RE GUYANA
Guyanese NGOs, including the Amerindian Peoples Association and
the Guyana Human Rights Association, are about to send the
following letter to the 'World Bank group' of donors and
international agencies active in Guyana, which is due to meet in
Guyana imminently to discuss future development and investment
strategy there.
Please sign on to this letter.
Send the name of person, their organisation and country of
incorporation to the WRM office in the England by the 15TH
JANUARY and we will pass the list through to Guyana for inclusion
on the master letter.
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY ON THIS ACTION WOULD REALLY HELP, SO
PLEASE DON'T DELAY.
SEND YOUR REPLIES BY EMAIL TO: wrm@gn.apc.org
BY FAX TO: + 44 60 876 743
World Bank Meeting on Guyana
IBRD/IDA/GEF/IMF/IADB
UNDP/UNICEF/PAHP/IICA
ODA/CIDA/GTZ/USAID/
Embassies of China/India/Japan/Korea
EC
Caribbean Development Bank
Carter Centre 15 January 1994
OPEN LETTER TO THE WORLD BANK GROUP MEETING IN GUYANA
Dear Sirs,
At the end of January 1994, the World Bank's Caribbean Group for
Economic Cooperation and Development will be meeting in
Georgetown, Guyana, to discuss, inter alia, future financial
assistance to the country.
We are writing to express our grave concerns about the lack of
effective controls on development in the interior of Guyana, with
serious social and environmental consequences, and to urge that
all plans for future development assistance to the country take
these problems into account.
While we welcome the economic and political liberalisation which
is taking place, we are concerned that development assistance
programmes and policies to encourage foreign direct investment
(FDI) in Guyana are being promoted with scant attention being
paid to the social and environmental consequences.
As a result, logging has begun to increase exponentially. Since
1989 the area of forest that has been leased out to loggers has
rocketed from some 2.4 million hectares to well over 8.2 million
and further deals to hand out massive concessions are in the
pipeline (see map and table). This means that nearly all State
Forests, totalling 9.1 million hectares, have now been leased
out. Many of these concessions have been granted to foreign
companies on terms extraordinarily advantageous to them, while
ignoring local concerns.
It is quite clear that this expansion of the logging industry is
way beyond the capacity of the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC)
to control. In 1989 the Government's own National Forestry Action
Plan recommended an increase in trained foresters from 2 to 76
to effectively oversee a recommended expansion to 3.6 million
hectares under concession. Yet, today, while the area under
concessions is much more than twice this recommended figure,
there are still only 5 trained foresters in the GFC. As a recent
World Bank study has concluded:
'the agency is clearly unable to perform its functions...
is largely unable to collect the fees it is due and is
unable to enforce planning requirements and environmental
safeguards.'(1)
At the same time, the Government is rushing ahead with the
completion of an all weather road through the southern savannahs
and forests of the country, linking Boa Vista in Brazil with
Georgetown, without first carrying out a social and environmental
impact study. As international and Guyanese human rights,
environmental and academic institutions have long pointed out,
this road threatens to have a major impact on the Amerindians and
forests of the interior, is of dubious economic value to the
country, and also risks undermining national security. A World
Bank study has noted that:
'This road is controversial in that it is not economically
justifiable at this time, or in the near future, in terms
of costs and benefits to road users. In addition, the
potential harmful impacts of the road on the environment
and indigenous populations have not been adequately
studied.'(2)
In addition, the last few years have seen a massive increase in
mining in the interior. Guyanese environmental groups and the
local press have reported serious problems of cyanide and mercury
pollution. Placer mining, often using damaging technologies such
as 'missile dredges' banned in neighbouring Brazil, has caused
severe damage to river ecosystems.
All these developments are causing serious problems for the
country's indigenous peoples whose rights to land and to have a
say about the development of the interior are not adequately
recognised. Some communities entirely lack land titles and almost
all customary rights areas are undemarcated and unsurveyed. Land
disputes with neighbouring non-Indians, miners and loggers are
widespread. This is despite the fact that the recognition of
Amerindian lands was a condition of Guyana's Independence in 1966
(Annex C of Treaty of Independence).
In view of this critical situation we ask that there should be
no support for further initiatives to develop the interior
through aid and Foreign Direct Investment until an effective
institutional and policy framework is in place within Guyana to
control these problems.
In particular we urge that the Government is required to comply
with its commitment at Independence to recognise the land rights
of Amerindians, to institute an effective mechanism for
establishing and demarcating Amerindian lands, and ensure that
no development initiatives go ahead in the interior without
Amerindian lands being first recognised and secured and without
proper consultation with those communities likely to be affected.
We also urge that the Government freezes the handing out of
further logging concessions and institutes a Commission of
Inquiry into the performance of the industry. As well as
reviewing the effects on Amerindians, paying special attention
to their land rights, the inquiry should make public the content
and extent of all timber sales agreements and logging
concessions, assess the conditions of the labour force in
forestry operations, and establish to what extent the Forestry
Commission is able to ensure effective forest management.
The public inquiry should also be mandated to make clear
recommendations to ensure adequate State control of forestry
operations with the goal of promoting responsible forestry
practice. This may require the freezing of some concessions which
are not being well operated while the capacity of the Forestry
Commission to carry out its functions is built up.
The Government should also be required to carry out a detailed
social and environmental impact assessment of the Brazil-
Georgetown road to identify the risks of the road to both
Amerindian and coastal environments and communities. After this
assessment has been carried out and published along with proposed
mitigatory measures, there should be an informed public debate
on the matter. A decision on whether and how to go ahead with the
road should then be made accordingly.
The government should also commission an independent review of
the mining sector. Damaging technologies should be restricted or
banned, clear and enforceable regulations developed and
institutional capacity strengthened. In particular, mining
concessions within Amerindian areas should be suspended and the
law allowing mining six miles above and below Amerindian
settlements, even within titled areas, should be annulled.
These measures will go some way towards ensuring that future
development in the interior is carried out in a socially and
environmentally acceptable manner. However, the overall need is
for the Government to develop a coherent, sensitive and
responsible policy towards the interior and a responsive
institutional structure capable of implementing it. Given the
country's present economic circumstances, the Government will
need international support to achieve these ends.
As donors and creditors to Guyana you share responsibility for
this task, just as you share responsibility for the present
situation, whereby external pressure to carry out structural
adjustment and encourage foreign direct investment without
adequate safeguards is wrecking the country's natural and
cultural heritage.
We look forward to hearing how you plan to deal with this matter.
Yours sincerely
Jean La Rose
Amerindian Peoples Association
Mike McCormack
Guyana Human Rights Association
Marcus Colchester
Director, Forest Peoples Programme
World Rainforest Movement
Tony Juniper
Habitat Campaigner
Friends of the Earth (UK)
Stephen Corry
Director-General
Survival International (UK)
Chad Dobson
Bank Information Centre (USA)
Dr. Audrey Colson
Anthropologist
others sign on here please
Refs:
1. Stabroek News 29 October 1993
2. World Bank, Guyana Public Sector Review, May 1993:148.
10 January 1994