Eco-tourism challenged by constant savannah fires – ranchers

By Rupa Seenaraine

In the last few years, there have been continuous calls for eco-tourism to take centre stage in Guyana but the challenges faced by ranchers and eco-lodges in the savannah are far too many, especially the prevalence of fires that are deliberately set by locals.

The Waikin Ranch in Lethem, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice), entered the eco-tourism world just a few months ago but also suffered from one such fire. It has boundaries from the main Rupununi trail, the Ireng River, the Brazil border and the west and Pirara River and covers almost 33,000 acres of mostly rolling savannah plains and is a sanctuary to hundreds of wildlife.
Speaking with Guyana Times during an interview, Owner of the Ranch, Victor Pires explained that these fires are deliberately set by residents from neighbouring communities to obtain food. After the flames are doused, they would return to collect the wild animals that were burnt. For the past year, there has been a noticeable increase in these deliberate fires.
“What they normally set the fire for is to collect turtles. They will burn the turtles that are on the bush island or wherever and pick up cooked turtles and then they eat,” Pires explained.

He added, “The occurrences of fire are noticeably more. It’s higher this year than previous years. For one particular bush island, this is the third time in one year that it has been set alight. But when you have the heavy wind, the damage is tenfold”.
Pires stated that he would have spent millions of dollars to develop the ranch and construct fences around the perimeter. Throughout the years, the wild animals were bashful, venturing into the bushes in the presence of humans. This grew to change after the population increased, resulting in human interactions with rare birds, reptiles and mammals.
During the latter part of April, the flames lasted for three days due to high winds and were finally contained through combined efforts of several individuals. Pires stated that hundreds of trees were damaged along with the animals, making it the third fire in the area for the year.
“That was a windy day and the fire just spread and got away. It was an inferno and I think we lost about 10 square miles of savannah and a kilometre and a half of fence. What we assume is that someone had to walk hundreds of metres after cross our fence to set this fire. Most of the animals live in the bush wherever there is greenery and protection,” the owner stated.

While this is the chief challenge, it is not the only one. The waters are often spiked with poison to extract fish until they are completely exploited.
“There is a history of poisoning the water for fish, even when the ponds have already been fished and netted out. When they do these things, it doesn’t recover fast enough for the next season,” Victor explained.
He added, “That same Pirara River used to have arapaima, the long-nose pink dolphin and many others because it’s part of the Amazon River but because of the heavy netting, it is not like that anymore. It is not just the Guyanese that does it, the Brazilians do so as well”.
Co-owner, Francesca Pires expressed that it is very difficult to maintain these natural resources when they are constantly threatened by human actions. She stated that advocating for it to stop does not help the cause unless efforts are taken.
“We want to focus more on conservation. Now that we’ve gone into tourism and we’ve placed so much investment into this ranch and the conservation, it’s just senseless and irresponsible for people to just casually set fires on someone’s lands. I mean, if you aren’t going to add value, desist from doing so,” she expressed.

Prevention
According to the ranchers, the only way to stop these fires is by prevention since fire units are miles away and cannot effectively extinguish such areas of land. It is even more challenging when the flames are influenced by high winds.
“We can talk about conservation and we can talk about the green Guyana but we need to start putting some weight to that and not just lip service,” she stated.
She stated that constant fires destroy the composition of the land which can result in barrenness in the near future. Adding to that, ranchers are mandated by law to construct fences around their properties but the cost to enclose thousands of acres of land is substantial and they are constantly destroyed during bushfires.
It was mentioned that they are seeking to replant the area that was destroyed but this can only be done during the rainy season.

Eco-tourism destination
Last March, Guyana was named number one “Best of Eco-tourism” destination in the world. The award was presented to Guyana at the ITB global travel trade fair in Berlin, Germany.
The second annual “Best of Top 100” awards is a selection of the finest top 100 destinations selected by a panel of experts who review sustainability success stories submitted by destinations worldwide.
The newly created “Best of Eco-tourism” category was added in 2019 and puts Guyana up against very well-known and experienced eco-tourism destinations, such as Sierra Gorda in Mexico, Tmatboey in Cambodia, and the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador.