OVER 200 indigenous leaders from across the country will today gather at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), at Liliendaal, Georgetown for the 2023 National Toshao’s Conference.

In a recent invited comment, Amerindian Affairs Minister, Pauline Sukhai told the Guyana Chronicle that this year’s conference will see approximately 242 leaders meeting to discuss ongoing projects and plans to further develop hinterland communities.

“We met with them to partner and coordinate with them on their agenda, their time schedule and [give] our support for logistics to them because it is moving 242 leaders, and staff from the fields,” Sukhai said adding:
“There will be an update on the progress of projects by the villages as it relates to the carbon credits funds too, because that is another huge introduction of financial resources into the villages.”

With many issues facing Indigenous Peoples across the world, Sukhai said Guyana is way ahead of most countries in addressing those challenges and preserving the rights of the country’s first peoples.

She referenced the recent supplementary funding that was approved by the National Assembly for hinterland communities.

The $31 billion supplementary budget which was approved by the National Assembly, included $4.7 billion that will be directly allocated to 242 Indigenous communities and $26.5 billion for climate adaptation measures that were earned through Guyana’s carbon credits deal with the Hess Corporation.

The Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART), in December 2022, issued the world’s first TREES credits to Guyana.

This marked a milestone as it was the first time a country was issued carbon credits specifically designed for the voluntary and compliance carbon markets for successfully preventing forest loss and degradation — a process known as jurisdictional REDD+.
Following the completion of an independent validation and verification process and approval by the ART Board of Directors, ART issued 33.47 million TREES credits to Guyana for the five-year period 2016 to 2020.

This paved the way for a historic agreement between Hess Corporation and the Government of Guyana, whereby the oil giants opted to purchase about one-third of all Guyana’s credits (issued and anticipated) up to 2030.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the National Toshaos Council (NTC) and Toshao of Moraikobai Village, Derrick John previously disclosed that 90 per cent of the 242 Amerindian communities have already received their benefits from the carbon credit funds.

According to John the carbon credit funds and the titling of indigenous lands will be among the key topics discussed at the conference.

“One of the things that is very key and important for the Indigenous community is their lands, titling of their lands and we have been working very closely with the ALT (Amerindian Land Titling) team from the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs and I think that they have made a lot of progress from last year, and I think that some communities now will be having their titles this year,” John said.

The National Toshao’s Conference offers Indigenous leaders the opportunity to meet and interact with government officials to make critical decisions regarding their livelihoods and development.

The conference will conclude on September 1.