Today’s column considers the relation of interior/forestryroads to development within the context of the third cause singled out by the PRSP as contributory to endemic poverty: the absence of noncomplementing growth-oriented infrastructure (PRSP 2001, p. 7). This analysis is undertaken in the context of the question: Why is there persistent poverty in the interior alongside the parcelling out of Guyana’s best endowed forests in largescale forestry concessions?
There is a long-standing world-wide debate over whether forest roads facilitate forest degradation and illegal logging or stimulate conservation efforts; whether interior roads instigate social conflict by displacing indigenous groups or provide market access to economic goods for hinterland communities; and whether they promote jobs and local economic development or only favour the trade interests of large-scale timber producers. The short answer in most places is that under a regulatory framework which is implemented to maximise public good and not private interests, roads – feeder or forest roads, indeed all interior roads and trails – can spell sustainable development. In Guyana the regulatory framework is the Road Administration Division (RAD) of the Ministry of Public Works and Communications. However, away from the coast, RAD’s reach is weak if not non-existent.
Among the constraints facing the RAD which are listed in the National Development Strategy 1996 are: weak institutional status; limited institutional capacity (critically short of technical staff); inadequate financial resources and lack of equipment (NDS, chapter 38). At least in its early years, the Guyana Natural Resources Agency intended to aid private sector constructors to rationalise alignments of logging and mining roads in the national interest The Guyana Integrated Natural Resources Information System (GINRIS) developed with German (GTZ) aid in the late 1990s and available at the Guyana Lands & Surveys Commission HQ is an excellent tool for joint planning and display of hinterland road alignments relative to logging and mining concessions. Why is GINRIS not more used and made publicly accessible?
Five years later, the PRSP does not mention any improvement in the status or resources of the RAD, noting that “the capacity of the RAD
