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In support of Ministerial action on the Puruni River
Dear Editor,
The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) wishes to commend. the Ministry of Natural Resources for its prompt action in issuing five cease and desist orders against gold-mining dredges on the Puruni river, with the promise of similar actions against others in the coming weeks. The accompanying announcement that a ‘multi-dimensional solution to a complex problem’ will be developed in the coming weeks opens up opportunities for development of a more sustained response to protecting the life of Guyana’s major river systems. Indications that the Ministry intends to include relevant civil society representation in this response are equally welcome.
While mining is the most urgent danger posed to fresh water resources in Guyana, it is not the only source of concern in a country whose future has been defined by water since its inception. Aquifers – the underground source of water for coastal communities – are also shrinking and need to be supplemented. The scale of the response must match the scale of the problem.
Rather than the object of respect, the prevailing Guyanese attitude to nature is that it is something to possess, dominate and cast aside when no longer useful. Other societies have manifest much more imagination and purposefulness, their starting-point being to recognize nature as a living being in need of legal protection similar to the respect afforded to human life.
Evidence of other approaches includes New Zealand, which in 2012 declared the Whanganui River to be a legal entity, “having the status of a legal person with all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities”. The Whanganui Agreement aims “to ensure that all stakeholders and the river community as a whole are actively engaged in developing the long-term future of the river and ensuring its wellbeing.” Two years later an Indian court appointed three officials to act as legal custodians responsible for conserving and protecting the Ganges and Yamuna rivers and their tributaries.
Much earlier in 1972 the famous US Justice William O. Douglas argued for the conferral of standing upon natural entities so that legitimate legal claims could be made for their preservation. “The river”, Douglas wrote, “is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes—the fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it.”
Bolivia is currently embroiled in widespread water shortages due to the disappearance of glaciers, which attest to the wisdom of formulating in 2012 the Law on the Rights of Mother Earth which includes the right to water elaborated in the following terms in Article 7… 3. To water: The right to preserve the functionality of the water cycle, its existence in the quantity and quality needed to sustain living systems, and its protection from pollution for the reproduction of the life of Mother Earth and all its components.”
Guyanese society has been too complacent in failing to appreciate that our proudest boast, namely, of being the ‘Land of Many Waters’ is in danger of becoming a historical footnote. The transformational energies required to address this situation need to take many forms.
In addition to the initiative announced by the Ministry of Natural Resources referred to earlier, the GHRA is encouraging more purposeful climate action in Guyana. For example, the proposed constitutional reform process provides an opportunity for a stronger and more explicit constitutional protection for non-human and bio-diverse forms of life.
Executive Committee,
Guyana Human Rights Association
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