- A series of ongoing road projects traveling over 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the capital of Georgetown to the city of Lethem, in the south, are supposed to improve access to more rural parts of Guyana while facilitating international trade, most notably with Brazil.
- But the project also crosses sensitive wetlands and Indigenous communities, raising concerns about how the government will manage future development there.
- Some of the roads cross through the Rupununi wetlands and Iwokrama Rainforest, where a unique watershed connects the Amazon River and Essequibo River basins.
Ongoing upgrades to roads through the southern part of Guyana have many conservationists on high alert, as the projects could impact forest and savanna ecosystems as well as Indigenous communities.
A series of roads traveling over 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the capital of Georgetown to the city of Lethem, in the south, are supposed to improve access to more rural parts of Guyana while facilitating international trade, most notably with Brazil. But the project also crosses sensitive wetlands and Indigenous communities, raising concerns about how the government will manage future development there.
“Throughout the Amazon, when roads are developed, they pose threats to natural ecosystems that they’re passing through and developed through, especially when the right approaches aren’t taken,” Aiesha Williams, WWF conservation director in Guyana, told Mongabay.
The project expands upon the already paved roads in some areas while creating entirely new ones in other parts. In total, it will extend from 121 kilometers (75 miles) from the capital Georgetown to Liden then continue to the towns of Mabura Hill and Lethem. The project also includes around 45 bridges, according to official comments made to local media. An alternative road between Toka and Lethem is also under consideration.
Many of the roads in those areas are underdeveloped, with limited users and minimal environmental impact. But this project — which started construction in 2022 — could bring thousands of vehicles through the area once it’s completed in 2025.
In addition to the damage done by actual construction, conservationists and communities are concerned about how the government will manage long-term development that the roads bring to the area. Transport trucks traveling to Brazil require filling stations, rest stops, restaurants and hotels, among other infrastructure.
On the other hand, the increased infrastructure would provide essential services, markets and economic opportunities to thousands of Indigenous communities, according to the Caribbean Development Bank and UK AID, which are funding the project. The organizations didn’t respond to a request for comment or couldn’t be reached.
Guyana’s Protected Areas Commission also didn’t respond to request for comment.
Some of the roads cross through the Rupununi wetlands and Iwokrama Rainforest, where a unique watershed connects the Amazon River and Essequibo River basins, also known as the Rupununi Portal. The roads could compromise the hydrological connectivity of these watersheds, most notably between the Ireng and Rupununi rivers in the western part of the country near the Brazilian border.
The watersheds are home to over 450 species of fish, according to a 2020 report from Cobra Collective, a group advocating for marginalized communities. In addition to subsistence fishing, species like the black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) and giant river turtle (Podocnemis expansa) give local communities an opportunity to develop ecotourism, the organization said.
The Iwokrama Rainforest alone is home to over 1,000 plant species, 140 amphibian and reptile species and 130 mammal species. The area also serves as an important route for migratory species. Road building could block their migratory paths.
“There is economic pressure in Guyana for natural-resource exploitation and foreign pressure to convert natural habitats into industrial farms, logging, mining and oil wells, and associated infrastructure, especially access roads,” the Cobra Collective report said.
It identified pollution, over-harvesting, irresponsible hunting and unregulated mining as threats to ecosystems in the area.
The roads could also impact often-overlooked savanna ecosystems that impact the hydrological flows of the Rupununi Portal. Soil there has a low capacity for storing water, which results in the flooding of thousands of kilometers of land that ultimately supplies rivers and streams with water. The road could disrupt that delicate system, drying up some rivers and streams.
But there are other impacts on the savanna that officials overseeing the project might not be able to predict, and that makes how construction is carried out especially important, Williams said.
“We understand the impacts to forest very well, but in terms of savanna ecosystems, and those mosaics of ecosystems down the southern part of Guyana, we don’t fully understand them and the impacts on them with such developments,” Williams said. “That’s why we need to plan for them.”
Banner image: A Limpkin (Aramus guarauna) flies through the Rupununi savannah. Photo by Allan Hopkins via Flickr. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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