Indigenous villages to appeal ruling on Upper Mazaruni lands

Despite claims that they were victorious in the recent court ruling which acknowledged their ancestral rights to lands in the Upper Mazaruni, the Akawaio and Arecuna Indigenous groups would be appealing aspects of this court decision.
In the case of Van Mendason et al vs Attorney General, Chief Justice Roxane George on Friday ruled that the Akawaio and Arecuna peoples of the Upper Mazaruni hold ancestral rights to lands in the Upper Mazaruni area, but those rights are not exclusive.

The Upper Mazaruni District Council (UMDC) called a press conference on Saturday, in light of the landmark court ruling, and declared that it welcomed the long-overdue decision of the High Court of Guyana. Chairman of the Council, Kato Toshao Mario Hastings, declared that the decision represents the culmination of a decades-long effort by the Indigenous peoples of the Upper Mazaruni region to seek legal recognition of their collective rights over the lands. However, he added that they plan to challenge sections of the ruling at the Court of Appeal.
“Our communities are the clear victors in this case. However, we remain concerned that the Chief Justice did not elaborate on precisely what it means to have communal title and what she meant by the exclusions to our title. We plan to appeal to the Court of Appeal on the portions of the ruling that leave room for the Government to continue infringing on our communal land title,” Hastings has posited.
The UMDC Chairman has underscored that the communal title affirms their rights to carbon credits generated on the land. In this regard, he is calling for permission to be granted before any projects are undertaken that involve such credits.
“Because it is our land, the Government must seek and obtain our consent prior to any projects that it intends to undertake involving these credits. We expect the Government to live up to its repeated commitments in this regard, as well as international law obligations. Free, prior, and informed consent is an incident of property rights of Indigenous peoples, and the 1959 District has been judicially declared to be our property,” he elaborated.
Additionally, there will be engagements with Government counterparts on the granting of concessions, which must also be granted after consent is granted.
“It is our understanding that, in light of the Court’s ruling, Government agencies such as GGMC and GFC do not have authority to issue any concessions in our communal lands without the express permission of our communities,” he declared.
He added, “We intend to write to various Government agencies to formally notify them of this position. In addition, we intend to seek advice and information regarding the status of concessions granted between 1998, when the case was filed, and the date of this judgment.”
The Chief Justice has confirmed that several parts of the Amerindian Act of 1976 were unconstitutional. Although that Act has since been replaced with the Amerindian Act of 2006, the Council said it intends to carefully review the document to determine whether the Chief Justice’s ruling has any implications for the current Amerindian Act.
“This ruling is especially timely in light of the Government’s commitment to revise the Amerindian Act by engaging Guyana’s Indigenous communities in a participatory process,” Hastings has claimed. (G12)