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

Infrastructural improvements such as the introduction of a telephone service and a
reliable, 24-hour electricity supply may have as much to do with this as the presence
of the road, though the latter is certainly contributing, and continued road
improvements will only accelerate this process.
Following a diplomatic visit to Brazil by President Janet Jagan in May 1999, she
and the Brazilian president released a joint communiqué stressing improvement of the
road, including construction of a bridge across the Takutu, as a key component of the
improvement of communication between the two countries. An article in the Stabroek
News of 22nd August 1999 indicated that EU financing may be forthcoming for the
upgrading of the current road to an all-weather surface. Although environmental and
social impact assessments are being undertaken, regardless of their results it must
only be a matter of time before the project goes ahead. The encounter between the
Rupununi and the outside world which will inevitably result could prove traumatic. The
conflicts of interest and dangers to the security of indigenous populations that will
result from this are already starting to manifest. As is the case elsewhere in Guyana,
Amerindian populations in the Rupununi are increasingly facing the prospect that their
lives may be affected by the activities of outsiders from both commercial and
conservation sectors.
3.1.3 The timber industry in the Rupununi
There is not currently any industrial logging in the Rupununi region, though timber is
extracted on a small scale for house building both within indigenous communities and
for sale to Lethem. The toushao of Parikwarawaunau, the closest Wapishana village to
Lethem, which does not have any titled land, reported occasional problems with
outsiders from both Lethem and Brazil cutting timber from lands used by the village
without permission. Extension of the state forest boundaries brought the area
available for industrial logging to within the area of use of Rupununi villages. Four
large exploratory leases were reportedly made available to Asian companies,
extending south to areas within the Rewa river encompassed by the local land claims
and greatly beyond the existing national transport network (GHRA 1997). The
prospect that this might lead to the onset of large-scale timber extraction in the
region was one about which many people in the Rupununi were greatly concerned on
my arrival. However, perhaps because of financial constraints exacerbated by the lack
of existing infrastructure, no concrete activity ever came about in relation to these
concessions and the proposed investments never materialised. Maps have not been