Eleven civic organisations and other stakeholders joined with the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) to create a civil society initiative to engage decision-makers on major environmental issues amidst growing concerns about the economic exploitation of Guyana’s natural resources.
The GHRA said the initiative was prompted by profound concerns over economic exploitation of all forms of Guyana’s natural resources (forests, minerals, wildlife, fish, freshwater and bio-diversity) under agreements which could devastate the natural environment and imperil the future well-being of the society.
The movement created on Saturday would promote more effective civic influence over environmental decisions which affect the life and livelihood of future generations, the GHRA said in a press release. Like other small and poor societies around the world, Guyana is under considerable pressure from global business conglomerates to entire into one-sided agreements. The proposed initiative aims to demonstrate that more effective management between civil and other relevant sectors of the society on environmental issues would strengthen the national capacity to resist such pressures.
According to the GHRA, official policies on the environment currently seek business solutions to problems that should be resolved by politics. “This habit of treating development decisions as something separate from politics, robs the society of the opportunity to utilize environmental activity to transform undemocratic politics, thereby discouraging citizens from believing that solutions can come from their own efforts,” the group said.
Although civic indignation about environmental concerns is widespread, it is rarely transformed into effective action. In this respect, the proposed movement aims to mobilize indignation into constructive engagement with decision-makers.
The meeting recognised that recovering national ownership of the environmental sector also requires a transition in Guyana away from the distrust and exclusivity that erodes our desire to live communally. “The greater the economic, ethnic and social cleavages, the less our paths cross and inter-act, the weaker our inclination to cooperate, to respect differences and to value the common good,” the GHRA said. “Fostering the political courage to develop these skills may be unfamiliar and uncomfortable but is unavoidable.”
Saturday’s meeting discussed the issue of access to official agencies as repositories of public information and expertise, as a key element in the effectiveness of the proposed engagements between the various sectors. The group intends to engage these agencies when it has developed a clearer vision and more precise ideas about the form of engagement and cooperation that will be needed.
The meeting also agreed on priority tasks including identifying a list of specific issues of common concern which would define the parameters of the movement’s activities. The list will also serve to develop an ‘identity’ for the movement determining the common ground shared by individuals, organisations and networks.
