Guyana urges conservation training, solving intellectual property issues
Human, financial resources seen as problem
By Miranda La Rose
Stabroek News
August 1, 2002
The Guyana report to the Caribbean Bio-diversity Capacity Building Workshop has recommended that conservation training be promoted and intellectual property protection (IPP) issues addressed and resolved.
Delivering Guyana's re-port at the Hotel Tower on Monday, Manager of the Centre for the Study of Biological Diversity (CSBD), University of Guyana (UG), Phillip Da Silva, noted that the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development (IICRCD) and the CSBD were among several governmental and non-governmental institutions involved in research and development in bio-diversity and conservation with limited success since the 1992 Rio Summit.
However, he said, the constraints were many and included intellectual property protection issues.
The workshop, which attracted participants mainly from CARICOM countries, Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela, was sponsored by UG, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and CARISCIENCE. It was held in preparation for the region to put forward a regional report on bio-diversity at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg next month.
Listed among Guyana's initiatives in the area of conservation and bio-diversity in which economic opportunities are recognised, pursued or being promoted are the IICRCD sustainable forest utilisation and community-based tourism initiatives; organic farming involving cocoa and sugar; aquaculture being promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture; a conservation concession and production of balata craft promoted by Conservation International (CI)-Guyana.
Da Silva, who is also Head of the Department of Biology at UG, said however that these initiatives are not without their challenges and constraints, which include a scarcity of persons to address problems of planning, management and monitoring, limited financial resources to implement actions, the absence of unified legislation and regulations, sectoral administration of biological resources and absence of guidelines, and regulatory and advisory mechanisms to address bio-safety as an issue of national security.
Constraints with regard to capacity building in Guyana include funds, local taxonomic expertise, use of the taxonomic network, lack of access to bio-diversity data much of which is outside the country, the slow rate of repatriation of bio-diversity data, low levels of remuneration for trained and qualified staff resulting in a high rate of staff movement out of the system and often out of the country; limited regional networking on bio-diversity related research and training.
The collection at the CSBD, he said, was growing at such a fast rate that there was need for expansion. The building is earmarked for extension through a grant from USAID.
Da Silva noted, too, that there was also a concerted effort on the part of UG, CSBD and the Environmental Protection Agency to have collections and bio-diversity data held outside Guyana, repatriated. CI-Washington through the Guianas programme is also assisting in this regard.
Other challenges, constraints and bottlenecks include unclear policies for dealing with intellectual property rights issues and indigenous knowledge; weak enforcement and compliance mechanism; inability to value bio-diversity at the macro-economic level; and limited financial resources to implement actions identified in the National Bio-diversity Action Plan.
Da Silva said that the inability to value bio-diversity at macro-economic level affects the allocation of national resources for the use and management of bio-diversity.
Bio-diversity economic opportunities existing but not recognised or pursued are pharmaceutical, bio-active compounds, new natural products and community based tourism initiatives, he said.
Local institutions and organisations playing key roles in bio-diversity and conservation are the EPA, UG, the Guyana School of Agriculture, the CSBD, the National Agricultural Research Institute, the Guyana Forestry Commission, IICRCD, CI-Guyana, World Wildlife Fund - Guyana, the Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society and funding agencies - UNDP and the Inter-American Development Bank.
Da Silva noted that existing and planned protected areas and others involved in genetic resources collection are the Kaieteur National Park, the Iwokrama rain forest project, the Mabura Hill Ecological Reserve, Orinduik Falls, the Kanuku Mountains, Shell Beach, the Southern Region of Guyana, Mount Roraima, the Moraballi Reserve, NARI, the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) and the Guyana Rice Development Board.
At present, institutions, organisations and projects involved in capacity building and education related to bio-diversity include UG, CSBD, EPA, CI-Guyana and Iwokrama.
In the final analysis there was need for regional capacity building for bio-diversity management, Da Silva said noting that UG and the CSBD have had some measure of success in terms of training and as a repository for bio-diversity management.
He noted that the Masters Degree in Forest Biology, once supported by Tropenbos and now run by the Biology Department, was a very good point to continue advanced training for bio-diversity management in Guyana. It could also have regional benefits, he added.
The sharing of bio-diversity data and information and addressing and resolving IPP issues, he said, were critical aspects of any successful bio-diversity strategy and programme.
He said there was need to unlock potential but with effective planning and examination of issues.