Editor,
I recently came across a video of the Prime Ministerial candidate of the APNU, Ms Juretha Fernandes, criticizing the PPP for including in its manifesto the continuation of the 15 per cent share of LCDS funds to Indigenous communities across Guyana.

In her five-minute-long tirade, Ms. Fernandes said the PPP had the “audacity, boldness, [and] disrespectfulness that we’ve come to know… to put back in the 2025 manifesto that they intend to give back Indigenous leaders the same 15 per cent carbon credit”.

She went on: “The PPP has grown accustomed to disrespecting Indigenous communities and leaders and believing that they can give the absolute minimum and persons would not care.”
First, it is important to understand that Ms. Fernandes unceremoniously weaseled her way out of the AFC and into the APNU — two parties that jointly held the seat of government between 2015 and 2020.

Now, I don’t particularly blame Ms Fernandes for the lack of policy – or even foresight – between that period, since she only served as a secretary to a government official.
However, it would have been prudent for Ms. Fernandes to examine her parties’ record in this particular area before launching her assault on the PPP.
Between 2015 and 2020, the LCDS was shelved by the APNU+AFC, and, coming to the end of its term in office, they presented the ‘Decade of Development’ – some form of policy framework it said would transform Guyana between 2020-2030. They were booted from office and so it was never implemented.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, that document was terribly deficient and did not contain a model for forest-based climate financing. Apart from a deficient policy, the APNU+AFC did not earn a single cent from climate services during that period.
So, while Ms Fernandes waxes lyrical now about revenues from climate services, it was during the tenure of her parties that Indigenous communities did not receive a cent from climate services due to their lack of foresight and technical capacity.
It was the PPP that, in 2022, reintroduced an updated LCDS, and secured US$750 million for the sale of carbon credits – 15 per cent of which goes directly to Indigenous communities for development projects.

To date, billions have reached more than 240 Indigenous villages where more than 800 projects have been implemented. The PPP is also targeting 5,000 new projects in Indigenous villages over the next five years, using revenues from the LCDS.

What should be even more embarrassing for Ms Fernandes and her parties is the fact that the sale of these carbon credits (by the PPP) included legacy earning – i.e. funds earned for the period 2016-2020 – the period the APNU+AFC was in office – negotiated for by the PPP.

In other words, the PPP earned revenues from the sale of climate services even for the period Ms Fernandes’ parties held the seat of government.
I do not know Ms Fernandes to be an Indigenous rights activist except for the short election period, but I suppose the opportunity was ripe and she attempted to seize it. My only issue is that when she advocates for Guyana’s First Peoples, she ought not to do so opportunistically. She should be consistent and honest – even about her and her own parties’ failures.

Yours faithfully,
Ravin Singh