Michelle Loubon

"Myra­mang yum­ba ya mi, Guyana pai, pu­ra tashem­ba seri­irii amu­ru­gong gretii wana ye ne­ing," he said, in his na­tive Amerindi­an di­alect.

Trans­lat­ed, it meant: "Greet­ings, friends, from Guyana. I am very ho­n­oured to be among you." Rupu­nuni na­tive, Guyana's Syd­ney Al­lic­ock brought greet­ings to those who had gath­ered at Hilton Trinidad, St Ann's, to help cel­e­brate a mile­stone, at Dr An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Awards for Ex­cel­lence in Pub­lic and Civic Con­tri­bu­tions, on April 17. Many could not take their eyes of Al­lic­ock's vest­ments; spe­cial­ly craft­ed by Sura­ma vil­lagers, and dec­o­rat­ed with beads. Mount­ing the podi­um, he said "Life is good. Some­times, you're up; some­times you're down. At times like these, I feel like singing a song."

Pre­vi­ous­ly, a video had cap­tured Al­lic­ock in his el­e­ment�the grass­lands of Guyana, where the con­ser­va­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment has been his call­ing. In his ac­cep­tance speech, he boast­ed "To­day, Guyana has more than 80 per cent of for­est cov­er. It has one of the last re­main­ing tracts of trop­i­cal rain­for­est ex­ist­ing in the world to­day. We are look­ing for­ward to the op­por­tu­ni­ties and the ben­e­fits we can gain by pre­serv­ing our com­mu­ni­ty-owned forests. "We are in­creas­ing sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment and de­vel­op­ing well man­aged small-scale low car­bon forests and sa­van­nah based eco-busi­ness­es, such as na­ture and cul­ture tourism and or­gan­ic sa­van­nah farm­ing."

Ku­dos for Amerindi­ans

Al­lic­ock re­mind­ed every­one about the his­tor­i­cal role which Amerindi­ans have played in Guyana and the Caribbean. The sea and the re­gion were named af­ter one of these tribes–the Caribs. Pas­sion­ate­ly, he ad­vo­cat­ed the need to in­vest in the hu­man po­ten­tial of in­dige­nous peo­ples. "I am hope­ful this award will en­cour­age the recog­ni­tion of the tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tion of oth­er in­dige­nous peo­ples to the keep­ing of the Caribbean en­vi­ron­ment, and the shap­ing of its cul­ture, its his­to­ry and de­vel­op­ment." In­dige­nous chil­dren had not been for­got­ten. He had built a school–the BHI Learn­ing Cen­tre. Forestry, wildlife man­age­ment, nat­ur­al re­sources man­age­ment and or­gan­ic agri­cul­ture are on its cur­ricu­lum. Like the el­ders and Al­lic­ock's fa­ther, "Un­cle Fred", the chil­dren are so­cialised in­to "liv­ing in har­mo­ny with the en­vi­ron­ment."

Al­lic­ock's de­c­la­ra­tion

Al­lic­ock said "I am a proud Makushi, and my home­land, the North Rupu­nuni of Guyana, is one of the most beau­ti­ful places in the world and one of the most eco­log­i­cal­ly im­por­tant on plan­et Earth, it's recog­nised by all the lead­ing in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions." "Our an­ces­tors called this place piyakitte (the place of land­ings) on ac­count of the many trad­ing posts and rivers that ex­ist­ed there in pre­his­toric times. From time im­memo­r­i­al, we, the Amerindi­ans have oc­cu­pied, pre­served and con­served its re­sources." The con­ser­va­tion­ist brought good tid­ings for the Caribbean: "Twon­meri sis ma muren­ki enu: To­geth­er we will be strong."

Achieve­ments

Found­ed in 1996, the North Rupuni­ni De­vel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive is a lead­ers' fo­rum that serves as the um­brel­la rep­re­sen­ta­tive fo­rum for 18 com­mu­ni­ties and 6,000 peo­ple. It pro­vides for col­lec­tive de­vel­op­ment plan­ning, de­ci­sion mak­ing and ben­e­fit shar­ing. It al­so sup­ports for­mal part­ner­ship with the Iwokra­ma In­ter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for rain­for­est con­ser­va­tion and de­vel­op­ment, Con­ser­va­tion Guyana, World Wild Life Fund and the Min­istry of Amerindi­an Af­fairs.

�2 Al­lic­ock is the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Sura­ma Eco-Tourism. Six­ty per cent of the com­mu­ni­ty's in­come is gen­er­at­ed through sus­tain­able tourism-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties and 75 per cent of Sura­ma's house­holds de­rive in­come from tourism.

�2 As Toshao of An­nai, Al­lic­ock served as a mem­ber of the mul­ti stake­hold­er com­mit­tee of Guyana's Low Car­bon De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy–a ground­break­ing ini­tia­tive aimed at sav­ing Guyana's forests while trans­form­ing vil­lage economies.