The South Rupununi District Council has rejected the draft Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for a proposed Romanex Guyana Exploration Limited gold mine at Marudi Mountain, South Rupununi, citing “grave defects,” including a lack of consultation, and it has called on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to deny the company an environmental permit.
“We are very disappointed by the lack of respect for our rights throughout this process. Without proper consultation and without our participation, this is just another example of the failure to respect indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent and our right to our traditional lands,” SRDC chairman Nicholas Fredericks is quoted as saying in a SRDC press release.
A proper process is critical, he said, “because Marudi is an extremely important watershed and ecosystem and we must protect it. In the future, we want to see governments and companies respecting our rights and engaging with us in an effective way.”
Given what he called a flawed ESIA process and the defects in the draft, he added, “The SRDC strongly encourages the EPA to deny Romanex an environmental permit at this point. We expect that in a revised ESIA process, Ground Structures and Romanex will respect our rights, utilize up-to-date information, apply international best practices and will fully and effectively involve us.”
Romanex is a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company Guyana Goldstrike.
The SRDC, Fredericks said, is asking Guyana Goldstrike to take responsibility for overseeing the actions of its subsidiary and ensure that it respects indigenous rights.
“We also request that the EPA oversee a process that ensures the consultant and the mining company are adhering to the law and international best practices relating to our rights. The conversation about Marudi has been solely focused on the gold for too long. We will not continue to be left out of the conversation.”
He continued, “We know, use, and respect Marutu Taawa (Darkness Mountain and the name by which the Wapichan people call Marudi Mountain) and we cannot allow decisions to be made about what happens there without us.”
The SRDC has submitted official comments and objections to the ESIA, the SRDC said.
Its rejection follows the publication of a draft ESIA as Romanex seeks environmental authorisation from the EPA to begin large-scale operations on the mountain.
With the proposed large-scale mining, the SRDC said it foresees major negative impacts on the people’s culture and the environment.
“Marutu Taawa is sacred to us, and is a place where we hunt, fish, and gather, and where our rivers are born. The mountain sits at a critical watershed, and its creeks flow into important rivers – the Kwitaro, Kuyuwini, Rupununi, and Essequibo – important lifelines for our communities.”
“This is of grave concern to us, and should be to all Guyanese,” the release said.
The SRDC objected because the draft ESIA was published without any consultation or discussion with the SRDC. It said “numerous requests for meaningful input into the process were ignored. The few meetings held were inadequate because of insufficient notice prior to the meetings, lack of explanation on the purpose of the meetings, failure to provide information about the ESIA process, failure to provide accessible and accurate information about the proposed mining process and its impacts, lack of translation, failure to receive input from our community members on how the meetings should run, and lack of follow-up from the meetings.”
The release added that the “Area of Influence” described in the draft ESIA is too limited as all Wapichan villages, as the SRDC argued that much of the rest of the country will be influenced by the project.
“Marudi Mountain is not only historically, culturally and spiritually important to us, many of our villages utilize the rivers sourced from there on a daily basis,” it said.
The SRDC noted that some parts of the draft ESIA are outdated and include data gathered three decades ago.
“There are gaps and inconsistencies in the data, and the report contains serious inaccuracies about our cultures, beliefs, and traditions. These deficits lead us to have serious concerns about the quality of the report as a whole,” the SRDC said.
Scientific assessment includes sections that are underdeveloped or contradict earlier documents and/or the company website, it pointed out. “For example, although the draft ESIA purports to address impacts on groundwater, it only considers surface water and shallow subsurface flow.”
Other areas of concern, the release said, are the type of mining to be undertaken, the nature of the mineralization (especially in regards to acid mine drainage) and understanding of local and regional hydrology.
In keeping with international standards, the release said, indigenous peoples should effectively take part in the ESIA process to ensure that those affected could understand the impact analysis presented in the ESIA report and that their concerns will be addressed.
In Guyana, the Environmental Protection Act requires that any interested bodies or organisations be consulted. “Because we are the main rights holder in this process and we were never consulted, we submitted formal objections to the draft ESIA in accordance with the Environmental Protection Act,” the SRDC declared.
