National Toshaos Council (NTC) Chairman Derrick John has rejected suggestions that efforts to craft a document on Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) were being spearheaded by the government in the background, amid repeated concerns by the other Amerindian community stakeholders about the less-than-satisfactory process to get the greenlight from villages for major initiatives.
John said that while many might think that the idea was initiated by the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) that was not the case.
“The article [Toshaos council seeking consultant on Free, Prior and Informed Consent talks, SN, May 28, 2024] said ‘government friendly NTC’. This whole idea was not initiated by the government, it was by NTC. We see the idea for getting this so it is a tool to be used. And this will be able to enhance the villages’ capacity, as it relates to dealing with outsiders,” he said.
According to John, everything the NTC does is with the view of promoting the interests of the indigenous people of this country, and he stressed that the current government played no part in initiating or creating the document.
“This was initiated by the NTC. This has nothing to do with politics and that has nothing to do with government compelling us. Nothing to do with government at all. When we are finished communities will get guidance of interactions,” he said.
John said that the organization did not plan to bypass village councils when it advertised for a consultant to assist with FPIC consultations and the process was not politically driven. The NTC is perceived in some quarters as either pro-government or easily convinced to accept the government’s positions.
However, he said the NTC wants a document that the government can approve of and that can possibly be made into legislation to help all indigenous villages.
“The intention was no way to bypass village councils. We are drafting a document that can guide indigenous communities and also persons who would like to interact with indigenous villages,” he told Stabroek News in an interview via phone last week. “This whole idea that I am worried about is that the government is using us like a rubber stamp and it is not like that.”
FPIC, however, has to occur at the level of the community and the NTC does not have a statutory role in this.
Hinting that someone has already been selected, although today is the last day for submissions for the post, he added, “The consultant, the man is helping us … After he is finished drafting this document, his work is finished.”
Last week, this newspaper reported, based on an advertisement that was published in the Sunday Stabroek of May 26, that the NTC was seeking a consultant to assist it with FPIC consultations with indigenous communities. That advertisement said that the FPIC consultant will be responsible for mapping the process on how to follow FPIC principles agreed upon by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs). The consultant will facilitate the first phase of the FPIC Guidelines Development Process which is to work up the first draft FPIC Guidelines for Stakeholder Engagement with IPLCs.
John said that many times, “I am and all our executives… There are times when people don’t have a policy direction so we wanted to craft a national document the government can approve. So whether it is the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs or whichever ministry” the document will fall under their charge and that minister can lobby for it to be made into law.
FPIC is a specific right conferred on indigenous people recognized in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which aligns with their universal right to self-determination. FPIC enables indigenous people to provide or withhold/withdraw consent, at any point, regarding projects impacting their communities.
The Guyana Government and the NTC have been battered by some indigenous communities over the absence of FPIC. This is particularly so in the large acreages assigned by the government to a carbon credits scheme with US oil company Hess which is bringing in a large amount of money annually. Indigenous communities have said that they were not consulted on this project and their rights have been demolished in the process.
Indigenous leaders of the Upper Mazaruni earlier this month expressed their dissatisfaction to an international carbon credits verifier that the government here had not respected their rights to FPIC on the matter.
On May 9, the Upper Mazaruni District Council (UMDC) and Kako Village met with a team from the carbon credits scheme verifier, Aster Global. A release on May 17 from the UMDC said that the company had been contracted to audit Guyana’s conformance with the Architec-ture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) standard for measurement, The REDD+ Envi-ronmental Excellence Standard (TREES).
The release noted that the verification and validation conducted by Aster Global sought to ensure that Guyana has correctly quantified net Greenhouse gases reductions and removals, and demonstrated conformance with the Environmental, Social, and Governance Safeguard requirements. The verification being conducted is for the year 2022.
“During the engagement, leaders expressed dissatisfaction with their right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent not being respected by the Government of Guyana during the process of developing the proposal to ART.
“The leaders also expressed their hesitancy in conforming to the carbon credits scheme while the Government of Guyana has yet to address key issues such as the land titling program whereby ancestral lands were excluded from the villages’ land titles,” the UMDC release said.
Toshaos and several village councillors from the eight villages of the Upper Mazaruni District said that their ability to exercise self-determination and governance was limited by the pressure to submit their village sustainability plans in order to access the carbon credit funds.
Overall, the release said that leaders shared their concern over the lack of information in their communities regarding the Voluntary Carbon Market and made a call for the relevant authorities to respect their land tenure rights and ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples in decision-making processes.
Earlier this year, the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) expressed its disagreement with the government’s handling of the carbon credit process while participating in a thematic hearing on ‘the impact of carbon market expansion on Indigenous Peoples and local communities in Colombia, Guyana, Peru and Brazil’ during the 189th session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington, DC, USA.
A release from the APA informed that the presentation at the hearing was delivered by Communications and Visibility Officer Lakhram Bhagirat and focussed on the technical shortcomings in the Guyana carbon scheme process. It explained that Bhagirat chronicled the association’s experience with the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) grievance mechanism. The IACHR heard that APA made a complaint to ART in March 2023, but ART did not address the substance of its complaint, which was that ART certified credits to Guyana despite violations of indigenous peoples’ rights and the lack of effective consultations with indigenous peoples as the owners of the lands and forests.
