-Chenapau Village Council calls for shared ownership of KNP

THE village council of Chenapau in Region Eight is calling for shared ownership of the Kaieteur National Park — a protected area where some 21 persons were recently charged for conducting mining activities.
This position was articulated by village Toshao, Edward McGarrell at a Saturday morning press conference, where he also debunked claims that his villagers were conducting illegal mining in the protected areas.
“The photos in the press was [sic] not where Chenapau residents were working. We’ve been protecting the environment and we respect the protected areas. So why would we allow mining there if we have been protecting it for so many years?” McGarrell questioned rhetorically.
Twenty-one residents including a woman and child were arrested Sunday last, after reports surfaced that they had been working on mines which were operating in the Kaieteur National Park.
Picked up on a trail, the Chenapau residents were escorted to the park by soldiers who then brought them to Georgetown, where they were charged. They were released on Tuesday evening, and on Friday, government announced that the charges against them will be dropped. Those persons are expected to return home today (Sunday).

However, the village Toshao is maintaining that those individuals were not working in the park, since they have been protecting it since their occupation of those lands. He said that he would not even acknowledge the charges being dropped as a sign of compassion, since they should not have been instituted in the first place.
McGarrell explained that the Patamona people from Chenapau have a better understanding of the environment and how it is to be managed. As such, he suggested that there be co-ownership of the Kaieteur National Park between the government and the Patamona nation, since the latter are the true owners of those lands.
The village Toshao explained that one of the advantages of having co-ownership is that the park would be better managed, since the Patamona people have the knowledge needed, and they are the ones who have been protecting the area over the years.
“The park will be properly managed because, as it is now, it is not being managed properly because we are the ones, I would say, protecting it all of the time,” he said.
Supporting the claims made by McGarrell was former Toshao of the village, Tony Melville, who provided a map of Chenapau to illustrate where the park was, where the mining had occurred and where the villagers were picked up.
He explained that the National Park’s signboard is an indication of where the park begins and nowhere within that vicinity were villagers found to have been conducting mining . Further, he revealed that the images of the mining area, which were provided by the Ministry of the Presidency, were taken outside of the park since no mining activities take place within the boundaries of the signboard.
Another former village Toshao, Sylvester Joseph, also denounced the claims by government that mining was taking place in the park and called for there to be an investigation to vindicate the residents who were wrongly accused and charged.
Joseph said that what he has observed is that there is no proper communication between the Protected Areas Commission (PAC) and the residents of Chenapau, and both sides end up on the losing side.
“What we discovered is that sometimes they have information that we don’t know about and sometimes we have information that they don’t know about. So we need to have better communication between the two,” Joseph said.
A call was also made by the current Toshao, for the army to be removed from Chenapau, since it has contributed to tension in the area and heightened fear among the Patamona people.
He reasoned that no illegality obtains in the area to the extent that military personnel are to be present, and on that basis, they should be removed.