Kaburi looks to end destructive logging

Jun 10, 2014 News

– Amerindian villagers trained in sustainable forest management

By Neil Marks
The dazzling Blue Morpho butterflies which serenade you to Kaburi spells of the rich biodiversity of the area, but then a wide open space of burnt tree stumps tells you all is not well.

Graduands Virley David (left) and Edna Edwards (seated), and others who graduated from the Sustainable Management Programme inKaburi village. Also in photo are Ian Kissoon, GEF Small Grants National Coordinator (third left from David) and Toshao Reynold David, (second left from Kissoon).

“Before, we just did ‘anyhow’ harvesting and destroyed a lot of trees,” says Lucas David, a retired public servant and farmer of Kaburi.
“That’s what we are hoping to change,” Ian Kissoon pronounces, as he looks at the patch of land, cleared of its trees and surrounding plant. Kissoon leads a Small Grants Programme of the Global Environmental Facility, which has provided funding to train 20 Kaburi residents in sustainable forest management practices.
“Now it’s about saving the forest,” David says. He is one of Kaburi’s villagers who Thursday graduated from the training conducted by the Forestry Training Centre Incorporated. The villagers received training in Forest Management for Communities, Surveying and Mapping, and Introduction to Directional tree felling.
Reynold David, who serves as the Toshao, or Village Leader of the Region Seven community, admits that some residents of the community cut down the trees indiscriminately for their lumber operations. The lumber –from Greenheart, Purpleheart, Kabakalli, Mora and other trees – is then trucked to Georgetown. The community receives royalties on the lumber extracted.
“We didn’t do well because of the inexperience; because we were not trained,” the Toshao acknowledges. He is one of those who opted to be trained as well.
“I see this programme as being very useful, personally; we have to do things better and in the right way.”
According to the Toshao, the village now wants to preserve “most of the trees” and only use the ones that are marketable.
Located 72 miles along the Bartica/Potaro Road, Kaburi covers 41.57 square miles and received legal title to their land in 2006.
The village had its start about a century ago when John Arthur, an Akawaio man from Kamarang (also in Region Seven) and John Williams, A Patamona man from Chenapau (in Region Eight) arrived to hunt for food. It is little wonder then that Kaburi’s residents, now numbering about 350, are made up of the Akawaio and Patamona Amerindian nations.
To eke out a living, the men of the village head out to the gold mines to feed their families, while others engage in subsistence farming and small-scale logging. Jobs are hard to come by for villagers, and so the village sees the forests as a sure means of income.
“If they continue doing what they are doing (unstainable logging) they are going to earn money, but in the long term they will lose the forest so the next generation wouldn’t have timber to sell,” Kissoon says, underscoring the need for sustainable use of the forest.
Edna Edwards, the oldest of the group trained, said she didn’t know much about the trees and how to protect them.
“The animals too we didn’t know much about them. We always see them as mischievous,” she says, adding a burst of laughter, referring to the monkeys which frequent their homes.
“Now, we get knowledge how we can keep the trees and the animals for the benefit of the environment.”
Edwards says that she plans to share what she has learnt with others, “so they can know how to manage the forest also.”
One of the goals of the training programme is to achieve a 75 per cent reduction in the number of trees poorly felled and harvested.
It is hoped that the training in chainsaw milling techniques would lead to a 60 per cent increase in the production of chainsaw lumber.
The training programme is just one aspect of the funding the Small Grants Programme is providing to Kaburi.
Kissoon says that a five-year management plan will now be developed for Kaburi. A five-year harvesting plan will also be developed with the intention of contributing to the sustainable management of 1,100 hectares of forest.
He says sustainable forestry, apart from saving trees, preserves the way of life for Amerindians. It ensures their means of traditional medicine and food remains intact.
Virley David, 16, the youngest of those trained, is excited to put her skills to work. She boasts of knowing to “fix and clean” the chainsaw, “and do other things”.
“In the future I would like to be able to be somebody who can help the community,” she says, with her goal being to be further trained.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News