Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The Changing face of Georgetown -- 2

For whatever reason --  monitoring more closely monies out of Guyana by people barely literate -- there has been a minor building boom in GT, oblivious to things such as fire regulations, drainage and other people's boundaries. Guyana seems to have caught up with 16th Century Europe where Balzac noted derisively in Cousin Bette, that the 'new' way to make money was to buy and divide property to rent out as units - both domestic and commercial. This seems the current vogue.. wonder where the proposed exploited are expected to get money to pay, from?
Clearly not only Guyanese, but two international hotels-- the Marriott and Ramada foresee a boom in visitors and are trying to bring hotels with International standards here once again. Again I ask, where would the average Joe get the wherewithal to pay?
Someone noted at all new buildings being proposed to be rented out be mandated to provide parking for at least 50 cars. This NIMBY attitude (Not In My Backyard) attitude has to stop somewhere. A local person has taken it upon himself to build a building for three apartments on the corner of a relatively upmarket area-- in addition to carrying out using the road for mixing and storing materials and obstructing traffic I note there is no parking!
It is extraordinary how myopic those with new money are!

Saturday, April 5, 2014

How to see a Jaguar in the Wild...

... destroy its habitat.
keep seeing this BBC documentary on our education channel where the crew got very excited to capture a jaguar on one of their trip cameras.
My hunter guy was just telling me that he saw three jaguars, two margays and two ocelots on a recent trip down past the 'waist' of Guyana. I thought there was protected territory but apparently it has been 'sold' to the Chinese who are busy cutting down the trees-- yep the virgin rainforest soon will be no more-- my guy said that the diameter of one log was coming under 6 feet. Even allowing for exaggeration, the implication that we have no clue about what is going on past Linden is fairly worrying.  I guess there's not much publicity about it cos there are little or no Guyanese workers! You would think after all the environmental damage in China they would be at least a bit concerned about climate change?  But these International agreements are dependent on the locals to institute protection clauses? It was said that the huge tract of land given to the Barbadians is part of the Rupununi wetlands- for large-scale agriculture; and there are currently no laws governing what chemicals can be used - Rachel Carson must be turning in her grave--as apparently the people signing these agreements are totally unconcerned about the long-term effects on the environment.  Wonder how long it would take for people to realise another 'road' is being built in prime forest-- the Human Rights people managed to get a local mining concession halted in the deep south but the Chinese seem to be operating in broad daylight.
So the poor elusive jaguars are now very visible.