Iwokrama must demonstrate biodiversity can pay
-new Board of Trustees chairman
By Miranda La Rose
Stabroek News
August 25, 2002
New chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Iwokrama International Rainforest project, Professor Ian Richard Swingland, says his priority is to make Iwokrama effectively earn its own living - “in other words (to) demonstrate that biodiversity can actually pay”.
Professor Swingland, a British national, is a leading authority on commercialising biodiversity assets and the conservation of protected areas.
The leading ecologist is also an advisor on conservation and bio-diversity management to the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility, the Asian Development Bank, the United Kingdom Government and major corporations.
He met with reporters at a breakfast meeting at the Hotel Tower last Thursday to talk about his immediate plans for funding the project. His appointment follows the resignation of the former chairman, Angela Cropper.
Iwokrama, he said, can make money but there were deterrents, and the main one is the absence of a good road or airstrip for easy access to showcase its eco-tourism product which remains largely hidden, not only from eco-tourists but the vast majority of Guyanese.
Moreover, much manpower and resources are in demand just to access, stock supplies and manage the facility located in the heart of the rainforest area in Region Eight (Potaro/Siparuni). And he is appealing to the government to do something quickly to upgrade the road.
Apart from donors, Swingland plans to seek the help of affluent Guyanese living abroad, approach film star Michael Caine and his Guyana-born wife Shakira Baksh, a former Miss Guyana, and “make friends” with some wealthy people who can subscribe to a trust fund to mount programmes which can gain the support of financial and multilateral institutions such as the European Union and the World Bank.
Speaking about plans for immediate developments in relation to Iwokrama, the conservation biologist said that as the largest project of its kind in the Commonwealth, it has to demonstrate that it can pay for itself and is not based on constant donations from other organisations, which would be a very insecure way of funding a programme in the long term. Initially, he said, that will be his main task.
He noted that by March of next year the current funds of the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development (IICRCD) will be exhausted and it was his job along with its Director General, Dr Kathryn Monk and members of the board to ensure that Iwokrama survives permanently as “an icon of what can be done in the Commonwealth,” and to ensure that it benefits Guyanese, as well.
Dr Monk, who was present at the briefing said that while the bulk of the funding comes to an end in March some funding extends to the end of next year. In May this year, she said, all the donors and potential donors met and have already asked for new proposals. Iwokrama has a new framework for the next five years and over the next two months that framework, she said, would be developed into a multi-donor proposal. Donors are currently awaiting that proposal.
Swingland said that the IICRCD has a tough few years ahead but there was tremendous support from donor agencies and many of their resident representatives in this country as well as those in the local administration.
At present, he said, one of the tasks would be to reduce costs and to raise sufficient funds in order to establish a the tasks would be to reduce costs and to raise sufficient funds in order to establish a trust fund so that the interest from that would effectively pay for the basic running cost of the operation.
In seeking international assistance, Swingland said that Iwokrama will present itself to the outside world in a much clearer way so that it can see where donations and investments can create activities that would be self-funding thereafter. However, he said, the overall mission of bio-diversity conservation will remain the same.
There was no change in direction but only the need “to go faster and make things happen on the ground so our donors can say (their) money is well spent.” At present, they feel the preparation was excellent, he noted.
Noting that Iwokrama has been operational for the past four years but not permanently established, he said the immediate objective is not so much new initiatives but there will be a heavy focus on the project “earn(ing) for itself.”
He said he has no intention of going to the government of Guyana to say “please help us with some money.” The country, he said, “gave us a million acres and that was a magnificent gift but like gifts of that size there was always the other side which involves the cost for maintaining it. The objective now, he said, was to make sure that the initiatives were self-funding.
He noted that for the first three years of the programme, a considerable amount of money from the international community was spent to start a very wide programme of activities from education awareness to support for development in the local communities.
Noting that the business of attracting funds was a full-time job, he disclosed that over the next two months Iwokrama would be mounting a major operation to attract funding by various means. This, he said, would also mean operating the organisation as a business and as such there would be need for a world-class businessman to join the staff. That person must not only have the capacity to understand how to start a business but how to ensure its sustainability. The business mind has to permeate the whole entity, he stressed.
e observed also that various donors such as the ITTO which is concerned with forestry and timber was very keen to support Iwokrama in developing sustainable forestry. There were others who were keen to make things happen so the idea now is to turn proposals into activities on the ground.
“Not more papers, not more reports, not more proposals, not more people sitting behind desks,” he said, adding they must actually be making things happen using the natural resources available.
Pointing to the gains that eco-tourism could bring, he said that aspect of the Iwokrama programme could not take off at the present time “for a very simple reason... we haven’t got a road.”
The road, he said, was an enormous barrier. “That road has to be quickly sorted out by Christmas, hopefully. Maybe, certainly by Easter. That’s one plea I would make to the country... please would you sort out the road and do it as early as possible? It is preventing us getting people there. It is preventing us getting supplies and stores there and it is actually absorbing vast quantities of manpower, resources and time.”
Another idea would be to continue bio-prospecting to see the value of the flora and fauna which can be turned into something that makes money.
Questioned about the lack of publicity for the project and its international image, Swingland admitted that Iwokrama is not mentioned enough. “We have got to give it a global profile in the world. We can make it famous.”
“Iwokrama should be known worldwide as the trademark of quality and ethical environmental investment and behaviour... That is absolutely necessary. The amount of inward investment it could attract if it is known as the icon in the world of doing the right thing for the animals and the plants and especially the people who live in the area, if it’s known as the best, you’ll never have to worry again,” he said.