President David Granger has committed to re-establishing an Indigenous Peoples’ Land Commission to be named by December 31, 2016.
Asked on last week’s edition of the Public Interest programme how his government intends to address the concerns raised by the country’s first peoples about the allocation of lands, Granger said that he intends to establish a form of the Indigenous Peoples’ Lands Commission, first established in 1966.
“This is what I have committed to, so that demarcation could be done to the satisfaction of both sides. I do not feel that it is fair for us to go further into the future without dealing with the land issue. Land is life for the Indigenous People.
The problem is particularly because of mining and the threat of water pollution. Some people have tried to alter the boundaries. When you alter the boundary of one community, you often infringe on another community. It is not something that can be embarked on unilaterally.
That will be the agency that will authorise demarcation and speed up the process,” he said.
