Guyana’s laws protect the future the King champions

Mon 28 Feb 2000 18.50 EST ... on Sun 27 Feb 2000 ... 8.50 ... Prince Charles was made an honorary village chief by the Amerindian natives of Guyana yesterday, and toasted his new status with a heavy local brew made from jungle root. The prince was presented with a Surama tribe head-dress fashioned from eagle feathers before a group of local girls serenaded him with a song in praise of eco-tourism. ... private walk ... UN ... Later, Prince Charles visited one of Guyana's secret marvels: the falls at Kaieteur. Five times the height of Niagara, these waterfalls support a delicate eco-system including 100 species of orchid. To view the Potaro river cascading 741ft down the world's longest unbroken waterfall is a privilege accorded only to a few. Tourism barely figures in the economy of Guyana. According to Amerindian legend, the Patamona tribal chief, Kaie, paddled over the falls, sacrificing himself to the spirits to save his tribe and appease the gods. ... The future of

Kanashen is Guyana’s southernmost Amerindian/Indigenous village, located in the Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo region of Guyana and shares an international border with Brazil. Kanashen hosts a population of about 300 residents of the Wai Wai indigenous people, who have lived for many years in the forest and open savannahs of this area. The Wai Wais over the years continued to practice their indigenous culture, paying strong attention to the management of the ecosystems and unique biodiversity, eventually leading to their landmark move to dedicate all their rainforest to the conservation of biodiversity. ... Their journey dates back to 2004 when the Village of Kanashen was awarded – in what is considered globally as one of the truest recognition of traditional rights – absolute title to their ancestral lands. At approximately 3% (or 648, 000ha) of Guyana, this massive tropical forest remains isolated and relatively undisturbed in the deep south of Guyana. Being cognizant of external threats such as gold mining and the emerging patterns of culture loss especially language loss, the Wai Wai took the bold step in 2007 to designate their land a Community Owned Conservation Area (COCA) under the Amerindian Act 2006. ... Becoming Guyana’s first Indigenous Owned Protected Area In 2013 the Village submitted an application to the Protected Areas Commission requesting to be recognized as a National Protected Area under the NPAS. Over the years the PAC worked closely with the Village and other stakeholders to develop a management plan and later submitted a joint application to the Government of Guyana for approval. In August 2017, the Government of Guyana legally gazetted the area declaring it a National Protected Area as part of the NPAS. ... The power for decision making and management lies with the Kanashen Village Council, who employs a KAPA Management Team of Rangers to implement the technical work programme of the protected area and its daily operations. Presently, the area is managed as a Category VI: Protected Area with Sustainable Use of Natural Resources under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) categorisation of protected areas. The management of the area follows the strategies, goals, objectives and outputs that have been outlined in the KAPA management plan and is implemented by a team of Rangers and a Manager employed by the KAPA Village Council. This plan identifies two main themes under which work is to be done: biodiversity management and community development. The former advances protected areas management activities which includes biodiversity inventories, monitoring and patrols, data collection and capacity building. The activities are funded by the Protected Areas Trust Fund (PATF). The second theme focuses on community development in the areas of infrastructure, health, ecotourism, and the preservation of the Wai Wai culture. It is intended that Kanashen will eventually become a national and international model for community conservation.

The first thing to mention is that there is a tight correlation between landmarks in international environmental policymaking and the development of environmental law in the Caribbean. This is especially so as regards the adoption of the principles of the Stockholm Declaration 1972 and Rio Declaration 1992, which are baseline markers for Caribbean Environmental Law, and which acted as the springboard for the birth and growth of the subject in the region over the last five decades. ... Legislature Caribbean legislatures have also made great strides in the past 50 years in enacting laws to implement specific MEAs and to incorporate many of the Rio Declaration principles. In 1991, there was just one piece of “true environmental legislation” in the region (the Natural Resources Conservation Authority Act of Jamaica) but this quickly became a precedent for similar legislation throughout the region, some of which expressly adopted Rio Declaration principles. For example, the Environmental Management Act of Trinidad and Tobago commits to a national strategy for sustainable development, and the Environmental Protection Act of Guyana expressly requires use of current principles of environmental management in the Rio Declaration. I should also highlight a seminal development in the region’s legislative landscape: the inscription of environmental rights into the Constitution. The original independence Constitutions obtained from the UK in the 1960s contained absolutely no reference to environmental protection. Some countries have remedied this deficit. The 1967 Constitution of Guyana was replaced in 1980 and then revised by the amendments in 2003 to provide that ‘everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to his or her health or well-being’ and that ‘The State shall protect the environment for the benefit of present and future generations’. And after decades of debate, the 1962 Constitution of Jamaica was amended by the Jamaican Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms Act 2011, to guarantee the right to enjoy a healthy and productive environment, ‘free from the threat of injury or damage from environmental abuse and degradation of environmental heritage’. 3 Other countries and territories are following these examples. ... But 30 years have changed everything. There is now a mountain of environmental declarations & resolutions, MEAs, legislation & regulations and judicial decisions, all underpinned by core and emerging environmental principles. These features have made the study of environmental law a genuine and authentic legal discipline now taught not just at Cave Hill but also at the Law Faculties in Jamaica, in Trinidad and Tobago and in Guyana. Regional universities have graduated literally 10 Natural Resources Conservation Authority v. Seafood and Ting International Ltd. (1999) 58 W.I.R. 269. 11 Talisman (Trinidad) Petroleum Ltd. v. The Environmental Management Authority Decision of Environmental Commission, No. EA3 (2002) (Trin. & Tobago). hundreds of environmental law students many of whom