One year later… land policy consultation incomplete

Jun 06, 2019 News

The Green State Development Strategy: Vision 2040 has much to say about the importance of a draft land policy. Yet, even though consultations were meant to start in early 2018, it is mid-2019 and the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC) has quite a few more consultations to do before it drafts the policy.

Commissioner of the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC), Trevor Benn

In December 2017, Commissioner Trevor Benn said that a draft land policy would be in place as early as 2018. The process entailed reaching out to a wide circle of stakeholders for consultations.
The creation of the policy is being undertaken under the four-year mainstreaming Sustainable Land Development and Management (SLDM) project which is being funded by the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF) at a cost of US$14.8M.
The completion of the National Land Policy is part of component one of the project which seeks to mainstream SLDM in policy, institutional and governance mechanisms to prevent degradation and restore degraded lands.
Apart from the countrywide consultations with stakeholders, the Policy is meant to take into consideration recommendations from the Land Commission of Inquiry that was commissioned by President David Granger.
The GSDS: Vision 2040 states that, as the premiere resource, “land requires careful and thoughtful use, with planned allocations in accordance with an agreed framework”
It noted that demand for land is significant and growing from a range of competing economic uses: mining, forestry, agriculture and transport infrastructure; as well as housing and settlements, drainage, water production, indigenous claims, among others.
And through all this, there are about a dozen land and/or resource use management agencies that fall under the jurisdictions of various ministries; Natural Resources, Presidency, Agriculture and Communities. They all have a stake in land use and/or resource management. An expanded list includes Amerindian and local government bodies and other agencies.
The issue with there being so many agencies working in this regard, it notes, is that they all have separate mandates that could, either, overlap or conflict with each other. That issue is one that has existed for many years.
Just recently, Benn announced that lands previously earmarked for agricultural purposes had to be appropriated for housing purposed. There has also been an overlap of mining and indigenous rights issues involving the community of Chinese Landing.
In that regard, it seems as though there is no legal avenue the government could take to solve the issue of the auction of Indigenous land to a miner.
The absence of an overarching policy or framework for land management has left a vacuum for many of these issues to occur.
The GSDS strategy refers to the draft policy, and the need for it to be a guiding policy for those agencies.
But since the announcement of consultations in early 2018, nothing was heard about that process.
“This remains urgent.” The strategy noted.
The GLSC had announced in late 2017 that it was looking at late 2018 as the end of the timeline for the completion of the National Land Policy.
When Kaieteur News contacted Commissioner Benn yesterday, he said that the commission had only done two consultations after which, the work was stalled by the other aspects of GLSC’s work plan.
He said that consultations would continue in the “coming months” but he could not identify a timeline in which the policy could be drafted.
Guyana recently received the completed GSDS: Vision 2040 and the Land Policy is only one of the first steps in the development of a modernized land mapping and development system for Guyana.

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