The struggle against climate change demands that all of us become involved

Jul 23, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Over the past few decades, deforestation has received great currency and critical attention in international politics. In fact, it has become an emotive and divisive issue among different stakeholders and the general public.
Notwithstanding, it continues unabated despite numerous efforts to reduce it.
This is unfortunate because the value of the forest is enormous to the sustainability of this earth upon which we, all, depend for our very survival.
Therefore’, government’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) is the right way to go. But understanding local cultures and accessing the knowledge of local people are the keys to unlocking the vast potentials of this strategy.
We, at the Environmental Community Health Organisation (ECHO), believe that the forest should be protected and preserved for the sake of the environment.
This is why we are happy with government’s LCDS. For us it is an appropriate response to the global challenge of climate change.
As we see it, forests are living oceans with enormous and indispensable utility for the environment and all that dwell therein.

More than that, they carry spiritual, cultural and economic values for those who inhabit them as well as those who benefit from them in direct and indirect ways.
In addition, to storing carbon, forests are essential for biodiversity. This is crucial for mitigation as well as daptation to climate change. But the importance of biodiversity in the fight against climate change is too often not properly acknowledged or recognised.
What is clear is that ignoring biodiversity could have the same degree of devastating impacts on the habitability of the planet as climate change.
Nowhere does this become clearer than with the world’s forests, which host more biodiversity and store more carbon than almost any other land-ecosystem. Therefore, forests are vital to the preservation of the earth.
However, we are aware that the debate on how to hammer out an international regime remains a contentious issue for many reasons, including the fact that forests are not considered as a global good and the question of sovereignty.

We are aware, too, that, there are a few disadvantages including precise measurement of emissions, compensation to those, who are making the effort to avoid deforestation, and probably a negative impact on innovation to do more for climate change, particularly in the area of energy efficiency.
Standing forests could crowd out innovations to push towards greater energy efficiency, by manufacturers and regulatory bodies, particularly in developed countries.
Still, the LCDS remains an effective way of fighting climate change. We would argue that even if the details of how individual countries involved would be compensated take some time to work out the low carbon development strategy remains a brilliant response to fighting this unprecedented phenomenon.
In the wider sense, low carbon is really about environmental stewardship – a call we continue to make to all those, corporations as well as individuals, who are concerned about the environment.

Environmental stewardship demands environmental awareness, knowledge, empowerment and action. These are necessary for the success of any environmental strategy or project.
In this regard, the on-going consultations, by the special team engaged with this process, have great utility not only to local people and corporations, but also to the strategy itself.
We are following these consultations with a view of making a submission at the appropriate time.
Notwithstanding, it is very true that, the reception of environmental communications and their effectiveness in delivering change in people’s attitudes and values is seriously contingent on many elements including local social and cultural contexts in which people live.
Therefore, the consultations should be concerned with accessing, acknowledging and building on citizens’ local knowledge to inform the strategy and the policies and processes necessary to implement and sustain it.

Our understanding is that, these consultation sessions are aimed at raising public awareness and simultaneously benefiting from the knowledge of the people in their local communities. This reciprocal influence would no doubt shape the final document on this strategy.
Whatever shape the final document takes it should account for the various cultures of local corporations and communities. This is a serious point because people interpret their environment through cultural biases.
They react and interact with objects in the environment based on affordances or use-values. It is clear then that, in order to get by – in to the strategy it must take into account their meanings and realities of the forest and the general surroundings of the people who inhabit it and indeed of all Guyanese. It must account for the way people actually make meaning, the way corporations operate, and how that process can be used to advance the strategy.

Low carbon would have one meaning to the people in regions 1, 2, 3 or 4 and quite another to the citizens of regions 5, 7, 9 or 10. Again, it would have a totally different meaning to corporations and businesses and to the way they develop their corporate strategies. These suggest that the consultations must fit the particular cultures of the various regions and corporations. Otherwise, there are likely to be gaps between the strategy itself and the understanding of ordinary people, who will benefit from it. Again, the strategy could encourage the transformative change necessary in the business sector that would stimulate a higher level of corporate social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility speaks to the problems that arise when a corporation casts its long shadow on the social scene and of the ethical principles that should govern the relationships between that corporation and the environment in which it operates.
However, while there is good movement on that front, we are concerned that there appears to be a lack of environmental alertness in other areas. For example, the situation as it relates to solid waste management and litter continues to be a source of problem to local communities. In the rural areas as well as in the city people are still dumping rubbish wherever, whenever.

It appears as though the challenge of climate change has not yet dawn on some of our citizens. Perhaps, it is because we do not experience natural environmental disasters, like cyclones, hurricanes, and earthquakes. But we should have learnt some lessons from the floods of 2005.
Also, we are becoming increasingly worried with e-waste. Derelict computers and allied equipment, discarded cell phones, microwaves, and an assortment of batteries are dumped in offices, or just left until a decision can be made with what to do with them. These and the various components are likely to find their way to landfill sites and into the environment. Many of these equipment are made of toxic chemicals and materials which eventually leach into the environment and affect the health of neighbouring communities. It is time to begin working on precise guidelines for environmentally sound management of e-waste.
All in all the low carbon development strategy is about carbon finance and preserving our forest. However, the struggle against climate change demands that all of us become involved and do our bit in the local community in which we live.
Royston King
Executive Director
ECHO

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