Georgetown is home to one-fourth of all bird species in Guyana

Nov 18, 2008 News

With bird-watching being accepted as the fastest growing niche market in eco-tourism, Guyana is ideally poised to benefit from this market, given that some 800 species of birds have been recorded here.

Tour operators who offer bird-watching are now being encouraged to do so in a way that meets good environmental and social practices. Towards this end, a new checklist has been developed with funding from the British High Commission.

The checklist was launched this week. According to the Deputy British High Commissioner, Simon Bond, for operators to practise sound environmental standards makes for good business sense, since bird watchers are ever now more conscious of environmental concerns, and so it would appeal to them to come to a country that takes the environment seriously; one that values the natural habitat of the birds.

The checklist is an industry leader, according to Canadian consultant Judy Karwacki, who managed the production of the checklist. She boasted that no other such checklist exists, and it therefore positions Guyana as a leader in the promotion of “green” tourism.

The British High Commission developed the Birding Tours Self-Assessment Checklist as a practical tool for tourism companies that offer birding tours in Guyana, including tour operators, lodges, and individual birding guides.

The Guyana Amazon Tropical Birding Society sees it as a “code of conduct.” The Society has hailed the publication of the checklist, saying that by preserving the habitat of birds, this will mean the birds are always around for tourists to see, and gives added advantage for this type of tourism to be promoted.
The checklist was prepared in collaboration with tourism companies here.

Its production was part of a broader project that includes workshops on environmentally and socially acceptable practices for tourism businesses operating in tropical areas.

The workshops and the checklist are based on “A Practical Guide to Good Practice for Tropical Forest-Based Tours.” This guide was produced by Conservation International, and was released this year in partnership with Rainforest Alliance and the United Nations Environment Programme.

Owing to a partnership between the Adventure Travel Trade Association and Conservation International, a web seminar was also developed that presented the guide and the checklist to professionals within the tourism industry as part of a series of web-based seminars designed to improve the environmental and social practices of international adventure tourism operators.

Thanks to the British High Commission, the two-day interactive and classroom learning workshop has so far been held in four locations.

The checklist, which is being distributed to tourism operators across the country, is structured to suggest a good practice in the form of a question that can be answered with a simple yes or no. And depending on the answer, the operators may then move to implement what they are lacking.

For example, the checklist helps companies to determine what actions to take to improve visitor awareness of how to contribute to the conservation of birds and their habitats, and to provide visitors with a rich learning experience.

The checklist also asks companies if they have identified any location where rare or specialty birds can typically be found, and whether they have carried out infrastructure development or improvements to facilitate safe and ethical viewing of the birds.

It may be used by companies to create their own action plans, being a valuable tool for visitors in helping them to choose tourism operators that actively demonstrate and promote good environmental and social practices.

Of the 800 species of birds identified in Guyana, more than 190 species have been recorded in Georgetown alone.

Among the other hotpots for birding in Guyana are: the Mahaica/Abary area, the habitat for Guyana’s national bird, the Hoatzin, or Canje Pheasant; riverside resorts; the Iwokrama Forest; the Rupununi Savannahs, known for a diverse range of species of Hawks, Falcons and Caracaras, as well as a mixture of Quail, Finches, Tanagers and Flycatchers; and the Kaieteur National Park, prized for a view of the magnificent Cock-of-the-Rock.

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Georgetown is home to one-fourth of all bird species in Guyana

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