– help deter use of mercury in mining

LAND disputes, illegal mining and mercury pollution were among key issues brought to the fore by Indigenous leaders when they engaged the Minister of Natural Resources at the Annual National Toshaos Council (NTC) Conference on Tuesday.

Minister Raphael Trotman was accompanied by top officials from the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) at the five-day event being hosted at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre at Liliendaal, lower East Coast Demerara.

On matters of mercury pollution, Minister Trotman said the government has heard the recently-increasing complaints and moving forward, it will be “treating the matter very seriously”.

“We’ve always seen mercury as something that is used by miners in the interior, but it has come home and it is a wake-up call to us; we cannot afford to be complacent when it comes to the poisoning of our rivers, our food and our waters,” he stressed.

He said that with the government being a signatory to the Minamata Convention, Guyana is working towards the eradication of mercury in the mining sector by 2024.

Addressing the same topic, GGMC Commissioner Newell Dennison said while he does not support the use of mercury, village leaders ought to take a responsible approach in encouraging miners to practise safe mining.

“We need to also take responsibility as individuals and communities because it is our own relatives, friends, cousins and whomever who are actually mining. I’m sure not all of you mine, but I’m sure everybody is connected to a miner in some way, and it is these people that we have to try to influence,” he urged.

Minister Trotman also responded to questions on the availability of money in the Amerindian Purposes Fund (APF), derived from royalties coming out of the GGMC for the development of Indigenous communities.

He told the gathering that the ADF amounts to a total of $1B which was paid over just before the government changed in 2015 which is verified by GGMC’s records.
“It was one of the first things I inquired into when I took office, and I am advised and I have been able to verify that approximately $1B was paid over to the then Ministry of Amerindian Affairs,” he responded.

When the issue of the deplorable state of mining and forestry roads emerged, Trotman vowed: “As far as roads are concerned, we will next year be paying more attention to seeing what we can do to maintain some roads that have been damaged.”
In addition to the foregoing queries, several reports came from the Indigenous leaders of miners currently disregarding the boundaries of titled lands, which resulted in the query of whether blocks had been awarded by the GGMC to the party in question.

NOT GGMC’S DOING
GGMC’s Commissioner Dennison made it clear to the some 212 Indigenous leaders present that the commission is not in the business of awarding blocks to titled lands.
“We have not had a policy, and certainly have not been practicing giving out blocks, permissions, permits for mining on titled lands. So where you have issues with existing permits on titled lands, the research has to be done to determine whether those titled lands were titled, and when the blocks were distributed,” he clarified.

There were also similar questions but in relation to Chinese Landing—Tassawini– and whether Wayne Vieira, a miner, is legally permitted to mine the aforementioned area.
Dennison confirmed that Vieira was granted permission to conduct mining activities in the area, following the ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) that he had received permits to do so prior to the land titling.

“When it was found that he was conducting activities in those areas, the GGMC attempted to put a Cease Work Order (CWO) on this operation, but that was found to be unlawful. As a result of that, we had no alternative but to withdraw that, and renew the permits that exist in those areas.

“[However] it is my understanding that with that situation, Mr. Vieira or his assignees are obligated to deal with the village on whatever arrangement they might be able to negotiate with respect to mining in that community,” he related.
Reports came, too, from the Toshao of Campbell Town in the Potaro-Siparuni Region of Guyana on individuals who had attempted to alter the boundaries of the village by diverting creeks.

In response to this, Dennison said: “Anybody who wishes to divert creeks or rivers needs to request permission from the GGMC; and in getting that expressed permission, they’re required to give very sound technical reasons on why they wish to do it.
“I have not seen any requests across my desk for such activities; if this is something that has happened recently, I would suspect that it is not something that was properly permitted.”

In light of the burning issues that were raised, Minister Trotman announced that he would be doubling his efforts to ensure that detailed reports of concerns coming out of the villages are collected and additional questions answered.
As such, he announced that for the remainder of the week-long conference, he would be assigning representatives from the GGMC and GFC to the Conference Centre to facilitate this process.

Some of the matters the leaders are expected to expound upon to these representatives are: The need for improved infrastructure; access to clean water; drones overflying villages; the negative effects of large-scale mining and land concessions.
At the same time, Trotman invited the Indigenous leaders to return today, as he would be open to answering their questions about Guyana’s oil-and-gas sector during his morning presentation.