This week in our regular Sunday feature the World Beyond Georgetown, we carried a story on Golden Fleece, a village on the Essequibo Coast, which is one with a difference. In the majority of places visited by our reporters, there are issues with drainage and garbage collection.
Villagers usually complain that the relevant local agency has not been doing its job over a period of time. Hence there would be blocked trenches and drains, some filled with weeds, others with garbage never dumped by the complainers, but by someone else. In cases where officials of the Neighbourhood Democratic Council or the Regional Democratic Council could be contacted, they would explain that there were problems with funding equipment and in some instances persons not doing their jobs properly.
Not so in Golden Fleece. Residents clean their surroundings on a regular basis and keep their grass neatly trimmed. There was no garbage strewn about, nor did the villagers complain about refuse collection. And because the drainage structures are kept clean, all it takes is routine maintenance, which the villagers do without recourse to councils and committees.
The result is that villagers are able to grow fruit trees and plant kitchen gardens and farms, which are not affected by flooding. And while many villagers own farm animals which are allowed to graze freely, the streets were also devoid of animal droppings as these are good natural fertilisers. Not surprisingly, the village, which is small is over populated. It is not a place that anyone leaves looking for greener pastures; the green pasture is right there.
What the residents of Golden Fleece do cooperatively together are the tasks that should be undertaken by the local government authorities, which collect rates from villagers and receive a government subvention annually. However, as mentioned before, in many rural areas these tasks are not being done. Unlike Golden Fleece, however, in most other areas, the villagers will not do it for themselves and in many instances, they cannot because the years of neglect would have made it an uphill task.
Years ago, in the ʼ70s and ʼ80s the entire country was just like Golden Fleece. In the city, drains were kept so clean that in the dry season, they were devoid of water and it was possible to see that they were concrete. There was no proliferation of plastic and Styrofoam and of course the city was less populated than it is now. Nevertheless, people did not just throw things around willy-nilly. And when there was litter, it was cleaned regularly. The same applied to other areas around the country; so that flooding was an event and not a way of life.
But there was a period where neglect became the order of the day. It spread like an epidemic across the country; local government management and community life were particularly susceptible to becoming infected. Decades later, care of the environment has been relegated to clean-up campaigns, which by their very nature are one-off and therefore not continuous. It seems that it is difficult to grasp that in a country where the dumping of garbage and littering became a norm, a clean-up campaign is nothing but a temporary fix. These acts, while abominable, have seemingly become ingrained in the psyche of some of us and it is well known that behavioural change is particularly difficult to accomplish. In addition, if an area is unkempt, persons are far more likely to add to the general disarray.
Caring for the environment means that there will have to be year round maintenance of the beautification attained by the clean-up campaign. Grass must be weeded, drains and canals cleaned, garbage removed, streets swept and cemeteries upkept on a schedule. The ad hoc approach? – well there is evidence all around us of how that does not work.
Consistency and sustainability are key. Golden Fleece village is one good example. There is scope here for local social scientists to study and determine what it is that makes the people of Golden Fleece different from their neighbours in their approach to the environment. One hopes that there are other villages where the same ethos exists and that like the other epidemic this one also spreads throughout the land. At the same time, while Golden Fleece residents have put local authorities to shame, they are still required to muster themselves and do the work that they have been placed there to do.
