Local wildlife conservation and management is to be managed by the Guyana Wildlife Conservation and Management Commission, which has been created under the recently passed Wildlife Conservation and Management Bill.
The bill, which was passed on August 9, vests the commission with the responsibility for managing the country’s compliance with the provisions of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which has been ratified by Guyana.
The explanatory memorandum of the Bill explains that the Commission, which has the power to enforce the provisions of the Act, is to be funded by a Wildlife General Fund, which the Act also establishes.
The Commission’s functions include granting, amending and cancelling licences, permits and certificates in respect of activities related to species of wildlife; monitoring and enforcing licences, permits and certificate compliance; determining the annual ‘closed season’ timeframe for the hunting, trapping and trade of species of wild fauna; facilitating, promoting and supporting mechanisms whereby local Indigenous villages may participate in the effective protection, conservation, management and sustainable use of wildlife on their titles lands; establishing policies and procedures for the protection, conservation, management and sustainable use of wildlife by and for the benefit of all citizens of Guyana and in particular the communities and villages living in proximity to wildlife; and causing to be established facilities for the quarantining of imported species of fauna and flora, including those species imported for the purpose of re-exportation.
Additionally, the law brings into being the Wildlife Scientific Committee.
The committee, which shall comprise not less than five nor more than seven qualified persons to be appointed by the Minister of Natural Resources, is to be responsible for advising the Commission on matters relating to the importation, exportation, re-exportation and introduction from the sea of species specified in the Schedules of the Act; and advising the Commission of the measures, including the establishment of quotas, to limit the grant of export permits when the population status of a species so requires.
The explanatory memorandum noted that the bill has its origins in the passage in 1999 of the Species Protection Regulations, made under the Environmental Protection Act, so as to address concerns regarding Guyana’s inability to implement and enforce the CITES because of its failure to adopt the necessary legislation.
The passage of these regulations resulted in the withdrawal of a notification which would have led to the refusal of any import from and export or re-export to Guyana of CITES specimens.
These regulations were later categorized as generally not meeting all requirements for the implementation of the Convention and consequently, in 2013, the Wildlife Management and Conservation Regulations were enacted under the Environmental Protection Act. However, a further review determined that a separate Act, and not just Regulations, was needed to provide for the protection, conservation, management, sustainable use and the internal and external trade of Guyana’s wildlife, both flora and fauna; and to establish the requisite framework for the creation of an appropriate and Convention compliant legal and regulatory mechanisms in Guyana.
As a result, the new legislation is intended create a supportive mechanism cognisant of the national goals for wildlife protection, conservation, management and sustainable use; create a national framework and mechanisms governing the local and international trade in all species of Guyana’s wildlife; implement the primary provisions of the Convention (this is required by Article VIII of the Convention); and provide a framework of licensing and decisions which support core principles of transparency, certainty, natural justice and fairness.
