Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Minister, Sydney Allicock, says strengthening institutional capacities for health care and emergencies shared between countries are essential for the development of Indigenous communities in the border regions of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation (ACTO).

Minister Allicock shared this sentiment Thursday at the ACTO Technical Meeting on Health-care in the Border Regions between Brazil, Guyana, and Suriname which is currently being held in Lethem.

Participants include national and local representatives of health care of indigenous peoples, and Indigenous affairs.

The minister said the Indigenous peoples have been the keepers of the forest for decades, they have protected ‘mother earth’ and its nature, and it is time they benefit from the resources it (earth) has to offer.

While indigenous peoples have been striving to maintain their cultural traditions, Minister Allicock said much more needs to be done, but noted that he is seeking to develop plans and programmes to promote and preserve traditional knowledge.

He explained that indigenous knowledge is worth safeguarding, particularly at a time when the ecosystem and biodiversity are under great threat.
Noting that Guyana’s commitment to a green state and economy is unwavering, the Indigenous peoples’ affairs minister said ACTO is both a useful and necessary organisation for driving the many and several regional agendas which touch and concerns “our people and transcends borders, going to the very heart of the existence of our Indigenous community in particular.”

He proposed that regional projects be crafted with the objective to establish a pool of human resources to document Indigenous languages; record oral tradition stories and other forms of traditional knowledge in first languages and official languages; record and publish traditional medicines and healing processes; and create comic books which tell these stories in child-friendly forms.

The project has notable thematic axes and this includes the elaboration of standards to protect the health of indigenous peoples in border regions; and secondly the promotion and exchange of information on mechanisms for the use of traditional knowledge of indigenous communities at bi-national and tri-national borders as a basis for the development of sustainable management plans for these areas.

Guyana is, for the first time, hosting the 2017 Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) Traditional Knowledge Meeting.

The Regional Technical Exchange, which is being held under the theme “Community Protocols and Access and Benefit-sharing related to Traditional Knowledge of Indigenous Peoples,” first opened on November 2, 2017 at the Princess Ramada Hotel, Providence, East Bank Demerara.

ACTO is an inter-governmental body that promotes sustainable development of the Amazon Basin.