THE Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, in a national report, recently identified several policy initiatives and projects as priority areas focused on improving environmental governance and management in the extractive sector, for its Strategic Plan 2013-2018.One of the initiatives is the effective and efficient use of the Land Reclamation Committee, which was established to propose a solution for addressing the restoration, replanting and rehabilitation of areas subjected to mining.
According to Mr. Veetal Rajkumar, Head of the Policy and Coordination Planning Unit in the Ministry: “The Committee was established by the Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment under the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission to improve reclamation of mined out areas.”
“The objective of the committee is to identify potential sites for land reclamation, potential species of plants to restore these areas and formulate an action plan to accomplish these tasks. The committee has also commissioned a compilation of studies that deals with the reclamation of land,” he explained.
Rajkumar told the Guyana Chronicle that the Land Reclamation Committee has, since, compiled numerous pilot studies in relation to the land reclamation through restoration, replanting and rehabilitation.
Priority areas
Based on the information generated by these studies, the Committee was able to formulate an action plan, a list of priority areas and a screening tool for selection of mined out sites.
However, the main aim of the action plan is to outline and identify mined out areas and point out which species can be planted to restore them.
Entering the data gathered during the pilot studies into the screening tool developed by the committee, will assist it in accomplishing these objectives, he said.
Rajkumar said the screening tool, therefore, requires information such as the size of the mining hole, the proximity of communities, the establishment of plant nurseries, access to abundant water supply, the willingness of land owners and so on.
The Land Reclamation Committee was created by the Ministry under the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) in 2012. Several stakeholders and research entities comprise its membership, including forestry and mining entities, the University of Guyana (UG) and the National Agricultural Research Institute.