The future is bright for Guyana in the area of land development and management says the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO]. This announcement comes on the heels of a week of successful consultations and meetings to initiate the Mainstreaming Sustainable Land Development and Management [SLDM] project in Guyana.
The Guyana Lands and Survey Commission (GLSC) will lead the US$ 14.8 million project, which is the largest of its kind to be rolled out in Guyana. This project will incrementally improve land administration, policy and planning as a basis for promoting sustainable land use and the reclamation of degraded lands – steps that are essential to Guyana’s Green State Development Strategy. The SLDM project will also strengthen the capacity of all GLSC’s divisions, improving efficiency and effectiveness of its operations and fulfilling its mandate as the national mapping agency and guardian over all public lands, rivers and creeks in Guyana.
Over the past week, a team comprising GLSC staff, visiting experts from FAO’s HQs and Regional Offices and GLSC’s sister agencies, engaged in joint work and concluded successfully with a prioritized action plan for the implementation of the project activities. The FAO team shared with GLSC the international framework of reference in matters of good practices of tenure and offered examples of tools and land policy formulation processes. The joint team also made exploratory visits to areas in Regions 3 and 10 to have a fist hand look at land degradation.
Head of FAOs visiting team, Ms Sally Bunning, expressed amazement at the extent of land degradation especially in Region 10, due to sand mining and the loss of agricultural land to housing and business development in coastal areas. She expressed optimism however, that GLSC has the strategic vision to lead an effective, multi-sector and multi-stakeholder consultative, regulatory, planning and decision-making process on land use and governance to support sustainable land use and management practices by the range of land users. Ms Bunning also noted that that the GLSC currently commands impressive technical expertise and managers in the field of geomatics, land administration and management, which is a guarantee for successful project outcomes.
