FOR the folks at Guiana Shield Resources Inc. – a 30-year-old family-owned company – expansion is definitely on the cards at its Dora, Demerara River location. But this will depend mainly on how the coronavirus pandemic plays out.

It’s not just about the scenic views for the staff of the sand-mining business, but the quiet, peaceful environment makes for an enjoyable job.

They hardly have any security fears on their minds while working and are instead more concerned about the scorching sun or the jaguars that might show up on occasions.

In fact, they are quite sure that ‘Hero,’ a dog that hung around the area, was attacked and killed by two jaguars. The suspicion stems from the fact that Hero bore scratch wounds on its body shortly after the two animals were spotted around the area in the wee hours of one morning.

Since this incident, they have been locking up the other dog so that concerns about jaguars have not really been surfacing lately. “Last year, we saw two of them at night. We heard the dogs barking and thought it was thieves coming, so we pitched the flashlight and saw their eyes shining,” Navin Dinanath, an employee, shared with Pepperpot Magazine.

Navin, who operates the heavy-duty machinery that facilitates the loading of sand on ships that come to the location, has been with the company for most of the time since its establishment in 2019.

“I have been working with these people for a long time. The job isn’t hard; only the sun can get overbearing sometimes. I operate the Caterpillar machine to load the sand onto the ships that come to the wharf,” Navin explained about his duties.

The ships would come to Dora every two weeks from Grenada, St Kitts and other countries. “My boss, Daniel Shields, is adventurous, so he thought of opening up this sand pit,” Navin shared.

In fact, Shields and the team were looking to open this business since 1999 when they purchased the land. They long had an interest in doing this type of business, but things couldn’t materialise for one reason or another.

The business offers employment to a few persons from the community, but Daniel has found the village folk to be more or less transient. Nevertheless, he tries to accommodate them as much as possible.

In an interview with this publication, he said there are hardly any challenges that he can think of when running his business. “I initially did have concerns about security, but none at this point. We have lights, generators; the business is strictly an export one,” he said.

He feels that what would especially be nice is if persons in the community start up small businesses to sell greens and other produce. “But no one has done it as yet,” he offered. It can be noted that many farmers suffered severe losses recently with heavy rains and flooding, causing the government to offer some relief.

Shields has not been able to grow the business as quickly as he’d like, mainly due to the pandemic, but has plans to expand once the circumstances improve.

“Expansion depends on how the business goes. What you’re seeing there is phase one. We have many different phases that we would like to do, but given COVID, having a worldwide effect and directly affecting construction in the Caribbean, we haven’t been able to grow the business as quickly as we wanted to,” he explained.

Even as he has noticed that business is definitely picking up and looking better, he prefers to take a phased approach to expansion.

According to the company’s Facebook page, the Founder and Managing Director & CEO, Hilbert Shields, is a Master’s degree-level professional Geologist, trained in the UK and the USA.