A REFORESTATION project in Region Eight (Potaro/Siparuni), intended to serve as a model for transforming land made barren by mining back into green foliage and vegetation, is proceeding apace..

Students of the Mahdia Secondary school view the manure making process for the reforestation project.

The work is being undertaken by Guyana Environmental Capacity Development Project (GENCAPD), in collaboration with Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), Guyana Forestry Commission, Ministry of Agriculture and University of Guyana (UG), at St. Elizabeth, Mahdia.

The aim is to plant 1,600 trees in a sterile mined out area and use the experience to advise miners, who will be required by law, to do similarly on completion of their operations at their allotted locations.

Spearheading the scheme is soil scientist, Mr. Mortimer Livan, who said the ultimate objective is to develop a ‘TECHPAK’, or technology transfer package, which will enable large and medium scale miners to comply with the regulations in relation to care of the environment and, more particularly, to reforest mined out sites.

“The GGMC has indicated that agreement on reclamation is a major condition for acquisition of a mining permit,”he said.

Under the extant law, miners are compelled to make a deposit into an environmental bond on being given permission to mine and they can lose the substantial sum lodged, if they fail to facilitate reclamation on concluding their mining.

Transforming Moonscape: An intern on the reforestation project checks an acacia tree one of 1600 targeted to be planted between now and early next year.

“So the project is aimed at assisting miners with the technology and the expertise for satisfying this requirement when they close their operations. It is a pilot project. We want to show them what has to be done,”Livan said.

He said similar requirements are in place for miners in many countries worldwide and, locally, they are intended to be educational not only for miners but for residents in the Mahdia area, as well.

Livan said people living there are presently being taught how to make compost or manure for the purpose of learning the technology in the process.

The group includes schoolchildren who can use the compost in gardening asnd he said the expectation is that the knowledge will propel those living in the predominantly white sand area into high yielding agricultural production of vegetables and food crops at minimal cost, without expenditure on fertilizer.

Livan is being assisted with the supervision by two UG students and one from Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA).

The trees being planted are the acacia type, a species known as capable of enriching the soil with atmospheric oxygen to encourage the planting of more demanding food crops.

So far, 100 trees have been planted and 1,500 more are to be made available for planting during the first two weeks of October.

INTER-CROPPING
The planters are looking at the possibility of cultivating other crops, such as cassava in the process of inter-cropping or alley cropping to make full use of the unique qualities of the acacia.

The UG students are ensuring that there are maximum growth rates during the current El Nino season, as the area is to be fully reforested by early next year and the findings and observations will be made known to all stakeholders in the mining industry, Livan said.

The GENCAPD undertaking is a mining assistance programme for the Government and people of Guyana, being funded by the Government of Canada through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

The intention is to build the environmental management capacity of mineral industry institutions in this country and the Canadian Centre for Minerals and Energy Technology (CANMET), a division of Natural Resources Canada is providing technical and management assistance.

The reforesting is one of a number of GENCAPD projects currently ongoing or imminent. Others identified are a feasibility study on the use of cyanide by small and medium scale miners; a malaria reduction programme using certain forms of bacteria; studies and advisories on diet for pregnant women in relation to mercury levels in mining or nearby communities and trapping and exporting of ornamental fish as an alternative or complementary economic activity to mining.

The current GENCAPD one, in the second phase of the Canadian assistance programme, started in April 2007 and is slated to end in September 2010.