— Land CoI hears

THERE is need for a national Land Use Policy to influence the development of an integrated approach towards land-use planning here, head of the Department of Environment (DoE), and Advisor on Climate Change Ndibi Schwiers has said.

Schwiers told the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into lands on Tuesday that such a policy would include harmonisation of existing policies and laws where they contradict each other or formulation of new laws.

Additionally, she said the National Land Use Policy would complement Guyana’s third National Development Strategy (GNDS) to safeguard the well-being of people and eco-systems.

She said in the development of the GNDS, which is coordinated by the Department of Environment, Sustainable Land Management (SLM) is prioritised as an important apparatus for food security and maintaining ecosystem services such as provision of clean, drinking water, carbon sequestration, supporting habitats and maintenance of viable gene pools (many of these ecosystem services are now being assigned economic value in countries around the world).

As such, Schwiers posited that efforts to support the SLM include land reclamation, which includes the putting of degraded and deforested lands back to productive use, the identification of opportunities to improve land use planning and natural resources management systems and the examination of adequate capacity and incentives to implement sustainable land management codes of practices in the forestry sector.

“In the absence of proper land-use planning, productive land uses will perform poorly and this can constrain national economic growth and consequently our attainment of ‘green,’ sustainable development,” she told the CoI as she elaborated on SLM in the context of environmental management.

The head of the Department of Environment told the Commission that her department was developed to coordinate and integrate activities of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Protected Areas Commission (PAC), Wildlife Conservation and Management Commission and National Parks Commission (NPC); assume responsibility for policy direction and monitoring of international environmental agreements and projects; and take the lead in guiding the process in transitioning Guyana towards the development of a ‘green’ economy.

“Land is featured prominently in environmental protection in the country. The EPA’s mandate spans the management, conservation and protection of all environmental media which includes land,” said Schwiers, who noted that the EPA has limited, direct authority over private and public land-use decisions, its implementation of the Environmental Protection Act of 1996 and resulting regulations for pollution control and prevention influence land management and land-use practices in Guyana.

REORGANISE
Earlier this year, the Department of Environment started the process to reorganise the EPA to make it more responsive to the developmental needs of the country. This resulted in the development of a new unit that treats with land resources management.

“This unit is tasked with developing standards to restore mined-out and other degraded lands, prevent releases to land and to conserve/manage land-based resources.”

That department will also be responsible for the development of emergency response guidelines for accidental releases to land.

This department will have a GIS arm, specifically charged with identifying all locations currently administered by regulatory agencies in Guyana including the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC), among others to identify conflicting land uses and cumulative impacts of development.

Schwiers also reminded that Guyana committed at an international level to protecting an additional two million hectares of land and waterways under the National Protected Areas System.

ALL REGIONS
These areas will be established across the 10 regions in the country in order to ensure that conservation is national in scale and covers all ecological zones in scope, she stated. This would bring the total protected areas in the country to approximately 22 per cent to be managed by the PAC.

“I would like to leave you with a common challenge that confronts us and that is land development without environmental authorisation,” said the advisor on climate change, who noted that the EPA by law issues first development consent, however, some project proponents engage the authorisation process after they have started their development.

She said due to a lack of proper zoning, many commercial and industrial activities are located in residential areas (often below dwelling houses), with developers not having the financial capability of mitigating negative effects.

“This results in numerous complaints due to odour pollution, noise pollution, air and water pollution in residential areas. Examples of activities include, inter alia, spray-painting operations, furniture workshops, mechanical workshops, poultry and swine-rearing activities.”

In this regard, the EPA works with local authorities and other stakeholders to apprise them of the Environmental Protection Act and its provisions for environmental authorisation for project development.

Schwiers said too that it must be recognised that land is the basis on which all life forms depend and it is key to livelihoods, incomes and employment for Guyanese.

It supports healthy ecosystems that Guyana relies on for clean air, clean water, and climate regulation, to name a few.

“What is usually not so obvious is the interconnection between the ecosystem and the social and economic systems. How we manage our land directly affects the health of the natural environment, as well as the social and economic well-being of the population and if not adequately managed, can lead to land degradation and a significant reduction in the productive and service functions of the environment,” she declared.

As such, the head of the Department of Environment stressed that SLM is important because it supports integrating the management of land, water, biodiversity, and other environmental resources to meet human needs, while sustaining ecosystem services and livelihoods.

“From my vantage point, it is the precursor to Guyana becoming a sustainable, ‘green’ state as sustainability cannot be achieved unless land-use is afforded attention commensurate with its importance in shaping ecosystem conditions and public health,” she concluded.