04/05/2024
Dr Ulric Trotz's address to the Guyana Press Association's World Press Freedom Day Public Forum
Address on World Free Press Day on " A press for the Planet -Journalism in the face of the Environmental Crisis"
Ladies and gentlemen,
Today, we gather to commemorate World Press Freedom Day.The theme for this year's World Press Freedom Day, "A Press for the Planet - Journalism in the face of the Environmental Crisis," is in recognition of the vital role that journalism plays and should play, in raising awareness, holding power to account, and catalyzing action to protect our planet.
As we consider the role of journalism and journalists in addressing one of the most pressing issues of our time – the looming environmental crisis and especially climate change, it's imperative that we also reflect on the fundamental role of the press in upholding democratic principles .
The environmental crisis we face today is multifaceted and complex, encompassing a range of issues - climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, pollution, and resource depletion. It's a crisis that transcends borders and affects every corner of the globe, threatening the very foundation of life as we know it. Over the years Guyana has participated in global consultations to reach consensus on global action to cope with these challenges and is party to several international Environmental Conventions e.g. Convention on Climate Change, Biodiversity, Desertification, Law of the Sea. All these international Conventions and Agreements pertaining to the global environment define actions that should be taken, nationally and internationally, by signatories to the Convention and also to the manner in which these actions are to be implemented, ensuring issues such as e.g. inclusivity, transparency, respect for indigenous rights ( Free and Prior Information and Consent) and stakeholder consultations are taken on board by governments in delivering the expected outcomes of these global agreements.
One such agreement signed by the government is the landmark Escazu agreement for Latin America and the Caribbean which was so ably presented to you earlier by a member of the Amerindian People’s Association. It is a landmark agreement that aims to combat inequality and discrimination and to guarantee the rights of every person to a healthy environment and to sustainable development. In so doing, it devotes particular attention to persons and groups in vulnerable situations, and places equality at the core of sustainable development. It is anticipated that this landmark agreement has the potential to unlock structural change and address key challenges of our times. It is a powerful instrument to prevent conflict, achieve informed, participatory and inclusive decision-making and deepen accountability, transparency and good governance.
For us in Guyana, as is the case globally, climate change has emerged as our most serious environmental challenge, threatening to undermine our coastal infrastructure , our agriculture, health and water sectors, our livelihoods , lives and life as we know it. It poses a serious threat to our survival despite, the oil bonanza that we are now experiencing. Building climate resilience and a zero carbon economy must be first and foremost in the mind of every Guyanese citizen, inclusive of those in our political directorate. It requires a coordinated national effort, across the political and ethnic divides that now plague our beloved country. The words of our bard Martin Carter does accurately capture the pervasive threat of climate change to our collective well being in his poem “All are involved in this line, “All are involved, all are consumed”. Indeed, if all Guyanese are not involved, all will be consumed by the vagaries of a changing climate – floods in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and as recently as this week in Brazil, and Kenya, and forest fires in Canada, California, Texas, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Venezuela, and even here in Guyana , droughts across large parts of Africa, South and Central America and Mexico. The evidence of a rapidly changing climate is all around us and speaks to the universality of the problem in its location and its non discriminatory impact on the global communities.
Journalists and journalism have a crucial role to play in our fight for survival in the face of the challenges we face as a country and as a global community from the impacts of a changing global climate . Here at home, as elsewhere, in the face of such daunting challenges, the role of the press is more critical than ever. Journalists serve as watchdogs, shining a light on environmental degradation, exposing wrongdoing, and amplifying the voices of those most affected by environmental injustices, mainly the poor and marginalized communities. They provide essential context, analysis, and investigative reporting that is crucial for informed decision-making and policy formulation.
To effectively carry out your functions under the environmental umbrella it is imperative that you arm yourselves with the relevant knowledge pertaining to Guyana’s management of the environmental challenges that we face and ensuring that through our stewardship we would be able to bequeath to our progeny a country that can adequately provide all their needs for a healthy and sustainable lifestyle for themselves and those who come after them.
Your role in addressing the global environmental crisis, particularly climate change, is pivotal and multifaceted. One would expect the local press to play a crucial role in disseminating accurate and timely information on climate change to the public, by reporting on the latest scientific findings, policy developments, locally experienced impacts and local actions to mitigate those impacts, and in the process educating the public and raising awareness about the urgency of the issue. The press should also have the capacity to hold governments and their affiliated institutions, local and foreign businesses engaged in the extractive industries - gold, bauxite, manganese, oil, timber, sand accountable for their actions – or inaction- which might undermine our capability to achieve our climate change goals. Factual reporting on instances of corporate malsfeasance or policies that exacerbate climate change can promote the necessary public demand for accountability and transparency.
The press through publishing opinion pieces, public interviews with key technical personnel (local scientists, policy makers,government functionaries), vulnerable stakeholder groups (fisherfolk, farmers, indigenous communities, womens organisations) can provide a platform for a frank exchange of ideas, which can lead to the articulation of innovative solutions, consensus building, greater public engagement in climate action and the behavioural change at the level of individuals and households. I am heartened to see that in the Press Association’s release for this year’s event they recognise the need for constant and sustained training of a pool of specialist journalists tasked with simplyfying science information in language that makes it palatable and connected to their daily lives. Our scientists also need to develop the art of communicating their findings to the general public in language they can emphatise with. I encourage the Press Association to continue their efforts to seek the necessary financial support that is readily available to bring them up to speed with the rapidly evolving environmental landscape so that they could more effectively discharge of their responsibilities in raising awareness of the critical issues that need to be addressed and providing an informed basis for constructive public advocacy and meaningful participation in our efforts to achieve development that is sustainable. I also noted with some disappointment in your release that both the responsible Ministry and the EPA had not responded for your request to participate in today’s event and this is beyond my comprehension.
Guyana’s roadmap for building climate resilience and a zero carbon economy is laid out in detail in its Low Carbon Development Strategy (2030) which is available for public perusal. The LCDS provides a platform for bipartisan support and action on both sides of our political divide, for national support across religious and ethnic lines , for the well endowed and the poor and disadvantaged , for all Guyanese. Every effort should be made to ensure that the public is familiar with the contents of this document so that they are able to make informed contributions to the process adopted for its implementation locally and for any adjustments that may be deemed necessary . Effective implementation would require the public to assume ownership of the LCDS to ensure that its outcomes are successfully delivered and redounds to the security and well being of all Guyanese. The press needs to become fully acquainted with the contents of the LCDS and to keep track of and report on the progress towards its climate goals such as emissions reductions, renewable energy adoption, and the implementation of the adaptation actions necessary for building climate resilience across all facets of Guyanese life.
There are other obligations under different environmental agreements to which we are party that need to be addressed, if our actions under the climate change umbrella are not going to be rendered unachievable. I recall recently the response in the local press of the Ministry responsible for marine affairs to a citizen’s observation that there was no significant progress on the development of a national Marine Spatial Plan. Such a plan is required as part of the national armoury for the sustainable use of our marine space. The MSP is defined as a “process of analyzing and allocating parts of the three-dimensional marine spaces to specific uses, to achieve ecological, economic and social objectives that are usually specified through the political process; the MSP process usually results in a comprehensive plan or vision for a marine region” More broadly, the purpose of MSP is to balance demands for development with the need to protect the environment.
One of the requirements in developing a MSP is the demarcation of Marine Protected Areas which have emerged as the most effective ways in which countries can manage the degradation of their marine ecosystem and to ensure that in the process consideration is given to the interests of all stakeholders especially our fisherfolk. In the Ministry’s response all of the actions undertaken were concerned with facilitating the shipping and oil& Gas industries and there was no mention of any stakeholder consultation in the demarcation of areas for other uses such as fishing, recreation and the maintenance of the integrity of sensitive areas such as Shell beach which is an important regional nesting site for sea turtles. This might have been an oversight by the Ministry but if omitted has serious implications for the livelihoods of our fisherfolk and by extension to our food security given our heavy dependence on fisheries for our protein requirements. These are issue that an informed press would need to ventilate so as to ensure that the interests of all stakeholders are given due consideration in pursuit of policy implementation.
A peculiarity of the climate change problematique and other environmental issues is that no one is insulated from its impacts and there needs to be a universal appreciation of our exposure and vulnerability to the unfolding threats to our well being. Recently a group of our citizens on the East Bank of Demerara took legal action on the siting of a facility in proximity to their community that was earmarked for the handling of radioactive material derived from the operations of the oil industry. They did this out of safety and other environmental concerns. This issue should be of concern to all Guyanese wherever they reside and there should be national consensus on the need for due diligence and extreme care with the design and placement of such a facility as the consequences of any mishap will not be confined to the immediate location of the facility but can be experienced in the wider community. For instance leakage into our aquifers can undermine access to safe drinking water, and through contaminated irrigation water radioactive material can get into our food chain.
The latter will have serious consequences for our ability to get our agriculture products on the international market and undermine our efforts at achieving CARICOM food security. We are already experiencing the fallout of the use of mercury in the gold mining industry where mercury has contaminated the water supplies in interior communities and is now detectable in fish that they consume and residents in interior communities with the result that there is a concerted effort worldwide to phase out the use of mercury in the industry.
It would be remiss of me if I don’t mention our Oil& Gas industry as it does pose some serious environmental challenges to Guyana which need to be carefully managed. Care has to be taken to ensure that there is minimal if any degradation of Guyana’s pristine terrestrial and marine space that would compromise the ability of the ecosystems they accommodate to provide the vital ecosystem services they contribute to our well being. With that in mind I had made the following recommendations in a paper I wrote on the intersection of Oil & Gas Industry and the Environment in Guyana:
Operations for the development and production of oil and gas should adhere to the highest available standards for such activity with particular attention being paid to air emission, waste water discharges, solid and liquid waste management with specific attention to shore based disposal of radioactive wastes, noise generation (including underwater), oil spills, energy efficiency and resource conservation. Procedures that mimimise leakage of natural gas and its venting and flaring must be adopted.
For shore-based facilities, the government must insist that the necessary safeguards are in place to address issues raised in the ESIAs for the construction of those facilities. Equally developers must be made to carry out climate risk assessments using available climate scenarios of future climate and to address those risks in their final design. The latter condition should also apply to the government’s development related to new infrastructure by applying the CDB’s requirements for climate risk assessments for consultancies related to the infrastructure work that they support in the region.
These are environmental issues that the public need to be addressed in a transparent manner and to their satisfaction and are no different from what obtains in more developed jurisdictions.
As journalists you have a daunting task ahead of you to bring the public up to speed with the environmental challenges we face and how as a country we are addressing those challenges. The climate change challenge is one that has now emerged globally as a threat to our very survival and is one that needs all hands on deck and a coordinated national effort, if we are to achieve the level of resilience necessary for our continued existence in a safe and secure environment with our life supporting systems intact and functional. The message from climate science is clear – we are fast running out of time for effective action to halt run away climate change and the time for concerted action in now. For years, Guyana, like other low income developing countries, has been going cap in hand to the international community pleading for financial support to help us take the necessary steps to protect our low lying coasts from innundation due to sea level rise and changing rainfall patterns, to protect our health, water, agriculture from the degradation caused by climate change and to build climate resilience across the entire spectrum of our economic, social and environmental landscape.
Unfortunately, up to now as we speak those resources have not been provided at the scale and in the time frame required for us to take effective action to mitigate the impacts of climate risks. Now, however, we do have access to resources derived from our oil revenue and addressing the climate issue should be at the very top of our development agenda. Climate risk should be integrated into any national development plan so as to ensure that our development is sustainable, climate resilient and green (zero carbon). The LCDS, as stated earlier, provides us with a useful roadmap for achieving same and the local press can play an important role in raising its visibility across the entire Guyanese population, facilitate public discussion, monitor and report on progress with its implementation, engage in discussions with key institutions with responsibility related to its implementation – UG, IAST, NAREI, EPA ,Iwokrama Rain Forest Centre, Climate Change Office, Guyana Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, Community Based Organisations, Faith based organisations, Government Ministries, Private sector .
The press should be regarded as a facilitator of national action to address the existential threat posed by environmental challenges. Unfortunately, journalists worldwide face threats, harassment and censorship in their pursuit of truth and accountability . Today in many parts of the world, including ours, press freedom is under attack with journalists being sidelined, abused and risking their lives to report on environmental issues in hostile environments.
Recently, the rise of misinformation and disinformation poses a significant challenge to environmental journalists and this can obscure facts, sow confusion and undermine public trust in science and journalism, making it even more difficult to address the environmental crisis effectively. It behooves your members to arm themselves with the facts. Truth is power especially when addressing POWER!!!
As we mark World Press Freedom Day let us reaffirm our commitment to defending press freedom and supporting independent journalism. Let us recognise the vital role that you journalists play in safeguarding our planet and empowering communities to take action. Let us recommit ourselves to building a more just, sustainable and resilient world for future generations and closer to home, a climate resilient and zero carbon economy in our dear land of Guyana.
Ulric Trotz
03/05/2024
