Paper 17: Case Study on the Upper Essequibo ... - UPEI Projects

CLIMATE CHANGE AND BIODIVERSITY IN THE AMERICAS
The GFC had just adopted and implemented the principle of Sustainable Forest
Management (SFM) and incorporated it into the National Forest Policy.
Simultaneously, Dr. Richard Rice and a group of researchers from CI’s Centre for
Applied Biodiversity Sciences (CI-CABS) were on a visit and recognized that SFM
in Guyana will at best allow for long-term timber supply but with limited
economic and ecological benefits. To address this problem, they proposed the
idea of conservation concession to the Government and it was accepted. This led
to a series of actions as described below:
■ Initial Consultation with all stakeholders to evaluate the
feasibility of the idea
After garnering the required policy support to initiate activities, CI-Guyana
consulted with a wide range of potential stakeholders to ascertain the
acceptability of the idea of a conservation concession. Through this
comprehensive stakeholder management strategy, CI-Guyana was able to
identify, inform and receive feedback from a wide range of national, regional and
local stakeholders (including communities, Government organizations, NGOs,
etc). Discussions were held with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission
(GGMC), the Guyana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Fisheries
Department and the Ministry of Agriculture. This was needed because though
the Concession focuses mainly on trees and non-timber forest products (NTFP) it
contains a wide range of resources (for example, wildlife and minerals) that are
of interest to these State Sector Agencies and are not covered by rights under
the Forestry Regulations. Consultations with the Regional Advisory Committee
(RAC) of the Region Nine (Upper Takatu – Upper Essequibo) Administration Unit
guided the selection of Apoteri, Rewa and CrashWater (hereafter referred to as
ARC communities) as the key stakeholder communities. The sixteen
communities (including the ARC communities) in the North Rupununi Region are
all represented by an umbrella community-based NGO registered as the North
Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB). Hence, the NRDDB
automatically became the principal regional stakeholder.
For each stage of project development, CI-Guyana sought and gained the
informed consensus of the principal stakeholders through the combination of
consultation meetings (Figure 1) with education and awareness programmes.
Upon garnering of the support framework for project implementation, a
Guyanese Lawyer was hired to determine the compatibility of the project with
existing national legislations on natural resource management.
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