AGRICULTURE Minister Robert Persaud, in a Tuesday evening exchange with People’s National Congress- One Guyana (PNCR-1G) Member of Parliament (MP), Mr. Mervyn Williams, said, because Guyana is below sea level, efforts to defend the coastline are ongoing. “Work is ongoing and it will be ill advised to say at what point we will get full protection from the sea,” Mr. Persaud told the Opposition MP, during consideration of the Budget Estimates in the Committee of Supply of the National Assembly.
Williams had referred to the Guyana Mangrove Restoration Project (GMRP) and asked the minister when Guyanese will begin to benefit.
Persaud said action to protect, restore and manage Guyana’s mangroves is not a stand alone initiative but, rather, augments sea and river defence construction done by the Ministry of Public Works.
The PNCR-1G MP insisted to know whether the GMRP is sufficient to achieve coastline protection and the minister reiterated that it supports sea defence and is a low cost option against rising tide levels.
Persaud said the interventions being termed insufficient are undertaken by the current Administration to restore what had been neglected by the PNC Government.
The GMRP is a $100M coastal development funded by the Government, with additional funding from the European Union (EU) and the Mangrove Action Committee (MAC) within the Climate Change and Agricultural Adaptation Unit of Guyana’s National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) of the Ministry of Agriculture manages it.
The minister told the National Assembly that the hard working team has placed the project ahead of the EU’s implementation schedule.