Six Guyanese statutes govern consent on Amerindian titled land, and only one requires a village vote. What Rupununi villages should ask before the Georgetown-Lethem road brings mining, oil and tourism.
Karanambu’s Karanambo-1 struck crude in 1982 and proved it worthless days later. In 2025, geologist Ygor Sousa struck oil at 17 meters in the Rupununi, on the floodplain that gives Karanambu its name. Then two water wells 30 meters apart confirmed the find. He classified it as shallow migration and seepage, its commercial value highly…
In Brazil’s Pantanal, a single jaguar has been valued at more than US$1,000,000 a year from tourism. That estimate comes from seven Porto Jofre lodges, which grossed US$6,827,392 from jaguar-watching in 2015. Four hundred miles north, however, Guyana’s North Rupununi holds the same cat at comparable or higher densities. The difference is sightings. For example,…
Gold value escapes while communities absorb damage. In April 2025 and again in June 2026, a government joint enforcement team arrested illegal miners inside the 930,000-acre Iwokrama Forest. Most were Brazilian garimpeiros, wildcat miners who crossed the southern border to dig where gold mining is banned. Iwokrama’s 2024 Annual Report had already reported incursions the…
Why the oil decade is the time to invest in value addition. In 2000, Guyana exported roughly US$21 million of plywood. By 2022, plywood exports had fallen to a fraction of that value, pushed down by the global financial crisis, the cost of value-chain certification, and softening demand for tropical timber. Over the same period,…
Siting, ownership, and processing now decide everything. Santa Fe has settled whether farming can scale. In the North Rupununi, a single large, mechanized farm operates on an 11,700-hectare (29,000-acre) lease, has prepared 3,200 hectares (8,000 acres) for rice cultivation, exported more than 12,000 tons of paddy rice to Brazil, and has expanded into soy and…
Why timing decides the future of ecotourism in the Rupununi. At first light on the Cuiaba River, a guide sees a jaguar on the bank. He must decide whether to radio the other boats. In high season, silence protects the sighting, the animal, and the business. That choice helps sustain a jaguar-viewing economy worth about…
A permanent access regime rewrites power before transport. A paved road in a tropical wetland does more than move vehicles. It redirects water, raises land prices, opens forest interiors, and changes who can enter and stay. In the Florida Everglades, the Tamiami Trail severed sheet flow into Shark River Slough. In the Brazilian Amazon, BR-319…
Why the Kanuku Mountains Matter. The Kanuku Mountains rise above flooded savannas and slow rivers in southern Guyana. During the wet season, floodwaters spread across the Rupununi and link distant river basins. Fish move with these floods, wildlife follows, and communities depend on the cycle. As in the North Rupununi and Iwokrama, this system faces…
Why the Iwokrama forest matters now. In Guyana, forests create jobs, knowledge, and income. It remains largely undisturbed. The Iwokrama Forest was created by law in 1996 for research, conservation, and economic use. Its work affects livelihoods, tourism income, and environmental stability. These benefits matter to people across the country. Yet the forest faces a…
