Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation And Development In A ...

2.6.3 Other Activities Relating to Conservation in Guyana
Most notable of many government initiatives in conservation over recent years has
been the passing of the national environment act in 1996 (EPA 1999: 27), the major
outcome of which was the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The EPA is the first government department in Guyana to be concerned primarily with
environmental issues, and unifies several functions formerly dispersed among
numerous ministries and departments. The National Biodiversity Action Plan, produced
by the EPA, does not give particular prominence to indigenous matters. It does,
however, mention numerous issues of relevance to Amerindians and highlights the
need for a concerted programme of research on traditional resource use and
ethnobiological knowledge (EPA 1999: 47).
Guyana is also signatory to a number of international agreements with potential
implications for indigenous people, including the Amazon Cooperation Treaty, Rio
Declaration, Convention on Biological Diversity, Agenda 21, and CITES (Sizer 1996:
212). Government rhetoric has increasingly reflected the global increase in levels of
concern with indigenous issues, but how this may translate into practice without
conflicting with short-term economic goals remains to be seen.
Numerous local and international NGO's are, or have in recent years been, active
in Amerindian communities, with greater or lesser measures of effectiveness (Forte
and Pierre (1994) give a list of examples from the Rupununi region). In addition,
several international conservation NGO's are now active in Guyana, and many of their
activities impact in some way on Amerindian communities. Conservation International
(CI) has a long-standing interest in the Kanuku Mountains, and initiated a programme
to add fiscal value to the forest in their vicinity by developing a market for balata
carvings made by artisans in the village of Nappi. CI has also recently established a
'conservation concession' in a remote area of forest in central Guyana, where they
have purchased logging rights with the intention of preventing logging and
investigating alternative land-use practices. The World Wide Fund for Nature
established its Guyana office in 2000, and has taken an interest in Shell Beach, an
important nesting area for marine turtles on Guyana's north-western coast. A project
has operated in the area for a number of years, concerned with reducing hunting and
egg collection by local populations via developing economic alternatives to the
harvest and raising public awareness within the villages.