Environmental monitoring as an engine for ecotourism and capacity building for natural resource management in Yupukari

The project area is the village of Yupukari and its surroundings, in the southern part of Guyana. Yupukari is situated on the Rupununi river, between the Essequibo and Amazonian river basins. Different types of habitats can be found in Yupukari and its surrounding area: savannah land, but also wetland areas because of its many oxbow lakes, seasonal flood waters, and other lakes, ponds, streams and rivers. Gallery forests and bush islands are found along the river and in the savannah. Yupukari is also close to the Kanuku Mountains, where one can find low montane rainforest, and higher up the typical montane forest system. The area is home to several (near) threatened species, such as arapaima, black caiman, giant anteater, giant armadillo, giant otter, harpy eagle and jaguar. It is a biologically diverse fish habitat and counts with over 800 bird species. Although the ecosystems in the project area are not under great pressure at the moment, RLI identifies increased consumption of resources for sale to town-dwellers, bird trade, conversion of land to agriculture, lack of formal management and lack of education as the main threats to the project area. Under the recently approved “Amerindian Act 2006”, rural indigenous Guyanese communities have greater autonomy with respect to local resource management and community planning. To be able to use this autonomy wisely and develop their own land use planning, processes of community discussion and decision making should be well developed. In the view of RLI, to improve these processes, it is important that the community is prepared to discuss the issues and that the community leaders have the capacity to gather information, analyze, articulate and advocate within this realm. With this project, they hope to contribute to the development of these capacities. RLI aims to contribute to this overall goal of capacity building to improve environmental management and planning by the community of Yupukari through the following objectives: 1) develop community monitoring programmes (black caiman, trees, reptiles / amphibians and birds); 2) build awareness, knowledge and skills related to natural resources and their managementand 3) improve already existing ecotourism products and services.