Iwokrama, Fair View village ink co-management pact
Stabroek News
December 25, 2006
An agreement to co-manage natural resources between an Amerindian community and the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Development is expected to set an example of how people can live in, while conserving a protected area.
The agreement was inked between the centre and the Region Nine community of Fair View at the Hotel Tower on Thursday. The village is located near the Kurupukari crossing of the Essequibo River adjacent to the Linden-Lethem road which bisects the Iwokrama Rainforest Centre site. The proximity encouraged interactions between Fair View and Iwokrama and as a result employment by Iwokrama also became a source of livelihood for villagers. Iwokrama Director General David Singh in remarks to the gathering noted that the agreement marked an important milestone in the development of protected areas management in Guyana and is indicative of the possibility that people can live, sustain their livelihoods, find self advancement and fulfil their aspirations, while living and working within a park. Additionally, Singh said the agreement established a global reference point for participatory decision making when it comes to natural resource use and management. "Today we take another important step as we formally embrace the concept of people living within parks as a viable means by which one can conserve and manage a protected area. In fact, today we see the last segment of the loop that connects the 90% of forest-dependent people across the world to the management of their resources in partnership with government and other stakeholders," Singh said.
He said leaders of the centre had discussed Fair View at the very first board meeting of the centre in 1997 and at that same meeting the then chairman of the North Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB) had reported that the communities were seeking cooperation with Iwokrama in the conservation of the forest.
Singh said it was in 2005 that Iwokrama decided to frontally and formally address its relationship with Fair View, particularly in the light of government's active programme for Amerindian land titling. "So in July this year, after Iwokrama formally supported Fair View's claim to land, government gave title to the village without requiring excision from the Iwokrama Programme site and Fairview now owns approximately 22, 000 hectares or 6% of State Forest, located in the Iwokrama Programme site."
However, he said, "Co-management means that there are shared responsibilities as there are shared benefits."
Amerindian Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues attended the simple signing ceremony and shared her desire to see similar agreements within a wider context in the development of more Amerindian communities. She pointed to the fact that over the last two years some 25 communities received their titles and another six were extended. It is in this vein that the minister said that the challenge now was to ensure that the communities have proper management systems in place. "Some communities, when they receive their titles they go and do exactly the opposite to what they said they wanted them for," Rodrigues said. She noted that some people held the view that the ministry should not interfere in the operations of the communities. But then when things went wrong, she said, those same people wanted the ministry to give an account of what happened and what exactly it is doing to deal with the situation.
The minister said she is heartened by what is currently taking place in some communities, where the good far outweighs everything else that is happening. "Fair View stands out and I was so amazed to see in this little remote village, a minibus. And when I asked the youths whose minibus it was they told me it was theirs, which they bought from the profits of a shop they had opened from a grant they received from the government for a self-help project," she recounted.
Rodrigues said the agreement between the community and Iwokrama was the first of its kind in Guyana and may be the first for the whole of South America.
"We had sceptics and so people felt that titling will do things that contradict the principles of Iwokrama, but one should note here that titling for the community came after Iwokrama was established and they got it to the way they wanted and now this agreement to manage the place," she added.
The agreement, Rodrigues stated, was an example of how people could work together and could be a model for others to follow.
She noted that the agreement will bring certain obligations from both parties and encouraged that persons be aware of their individual obligations.
To this end, she said her ministry will lead the effort in ensuring that protected area legislation is put in place.
Village Toshao Bradford Allicock co-signed the agreement with Singh and noted that villagers have been able to improve their lifestyles through Iwokrama and was confident that the signing represented the will of the community which is well established and made up mainly of Macushi, Patamona and Wapishana peoples.
The co-management agreement between Fair View and Iwokrama is the means by which all parties can continue to collaborate in an equitable manner towards management of the Iwokrama Forest.
Fair View will part-own Iwokrama businesses and Iwokrama will participate in the life of the Fair View Community. Guyana, in 1989, offered to the international community two percent of its intact tropical rainforest to demonstrate techniques of conservation and sustainable use in order to provide models for natural resource management. (Heppilena Ferguson)