AS a former Member of Parliament and spokesman for agriculture in Region Two, Essequibo, I made an extensive visit to the reconstructed and present construction of sea defence site on Essequibo. I was also a seaman, and have much experience along the coastal regions and the episode of erosion and accretions.
Over the years, Central Government has spent more than $2.5B to secure the 38 miles developed as well as to protect the 40,000 odd acres of rice and farmland in Essequibo.
The recent building of two groynes, replacing the wooden ones with granite boulders at Suddie foreshore have prevented the sea from washing away the entire complex, Post Office, Police Station and other business emporium.
The erosion has caused several families to be relocated from their Maris Lodge and Zorg areas, when permanent fruit trees gave way to the sea.
The newly built groynes at Golden Fleece have arrested erosion and much accretion is visible to sustain the area up to Queenstown. Four years ago, a kilometre of drifting seawalls was fortified by a 600 million defence rip-rap programme between Capoey and Aberdeen.
Presently, sea defence work is being carried out at Lima and Coffee Grove, and in Hampton Court from a layman point of view the foreshore between Dartmouth and Capoey, an area of 10 miles, is much more vulnerable to the sea, since it is the extreme point of Guyana at sea.
From visible land marks at sea, it can be said that approximate 60 square miles of land was washed away with erosion, including the original cremation sites at Coffee Grove and Devonshire Castle foreshore.
The English built a 70 feet chimney in 1912, about half a kilometre from sea, at Aurora, its survival is now threatened by erosion. Age long living Amerindians gave testimony to the fact that Moruca was a tributary of the Pomeroon River.
The Moruca is now seven miles away at sea, a phenomenon that took 200 years. However, the sea coast area, between Better Hope and Marlborough have resisted much erosion, since the mangles of black and red mangrove inclusive of crueda are dominant and remote from human indulgence. Erosion has seen the migration of the Red Egret, the Blue Crabs and some traditional sea birds. Both the Hydraulic and Works including the Ministry of Agriculture mangrove programme, a desperate attempt to keep the 84,000 odd square miles of Guyana in its original form.