Waipichan people addresses rights violation, harmful development

…launches website to address concerns

The Wapishana people, also known as the Waipichan, of Guyana have launched a website to monitor their ancestral lands against exploitation and harmful development while defending their basic human rights as a tribe of Guyana’s Indigenous people.
Their territory is located in the south-western part of Guyana. The territory’s rich variety of rainforests, mountains, wetlands, savannah grasslands and tropical woodlands are the homeland of 21 communities who make a living from small-scale farming, hunting, fishing and gathering, which they have practised over the whole area for generations.
The area supports an outstanding abundance of wildlife, including endangered species such as giant river otters, jaguars, and rare bush dogs as well as endemic species of fishes and birds.
The South Rupununi District Council (SRDC), in a press statement, said that community monitoring teams, the use of smartphone technology, drones, and community digital maps would all form part of the monitoring system for the protection of rights and land.
It is the hope of the Wapichan communities that use of tools, like the Internet, will help raise national and international awareness about the pressures on their territory. Increased visibility of rights abuse and environmental damage is expected to give momentum to their calls for secure land rights and national legal and policy reforms in support of community rights and protection of community conserved sites, including a Wapichan Conserved Forest, the statement said.
Chair of the SRDC, Paulinus Albert, said that their territory was under pressure from rampant mining and plans for agribusiness and road developments. “The situation is getting worse and threats are increasing. This is why we have decided to watch over our lands and forests, and to get organised to collect and publish information to tell the world what is going on,” Albert said.
According to the SRDC, in 2015, they recorded a number of harmful practices. These include: encroachment on customary land and forest by illegal gold miners; deforestation and destruction of water sources, creeks and wetlands, including a total wipeout of Toucan and Panche Creeks, and severe damage to Locust Creek; pollution of water courses with mercury and tailings sediment; illegal border crossings from Brazil used by miners, rustlers, smugglers and sports hunters and illegal opening of airstrips in the Parabara Savannah among others.
This is not the first time the Wapichan communities have denounced destruction caused by illegal and concession mining. They have been raising concerns since the mid-1990s about the detrimental impact of medium-scale mining and the risks posed by large concessions controlled by foreign companies in the Marudi mining fields.
The District Council has raised serious concerns regarding a current large-scale licence held by Guyana Goldstrike Inc of Canada, which overlaps ancestral lands that the State still has not titled, including sacred mountains located in the forested southern part of Wapichan territory. Despite promises of environmental assessments and ‘clean’ mercury-free mining, little progress has been made. Villages protest that a genuine, good-faith process of free, prior and informed consent has never taken place.
Shulinab Village Toshao Nicholas Fredericks said that they plan to feed their reports on mining impacts, rights violations and threats to territory into formal land talks with the Government of Guyana.
Some of their remedies and demands include: titling of village customary lands through accelerated progress in the land talks with the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs; suspension of all mining operations, licences and claims and a moratorium on all new mining roads in forest areas until a full Environmental Social Impact Assessment is completed in the Marudi mining field and surrounding areas (inside the mining licence and elsewhere in other mining claims); closure of Mining District No 6; full application of the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) for all mining developments and other interventions that may affect community lands, forests and rights in general, including over untitled lands subject to community land claims; development of new land and concessions policies that fully protect fragile creek heads, watersheds and areas of high cultural, spiritual or livelihood value for Wapichan Villages from exploitation by extractive industries and stronger enforcement of national and international laws and environmental regulations and proper sanctions for legal infractions.