First round of consultation on National Land Policy to begin this year

DPI, GUYANA, Thursday, January 4, 2018

The Guyana Lands and Survey Commission (GLSC) will conduct its first round of consulations on the National Land Policy during the course of this year.

Commissioner of the GL&SC, Trevor Benn, told the Department of Public Information (DPI) that the board of the Commission has a draft policy that will be distributed to stakeholders.

“We intend to fan it out to various stakeholders across the country in 2018 so that we could get a feedback from all concerned in relation to what that land policy should look like,” he explained.

The National Land Policy is important for the GLSC to effectively identify where the best lands for agriculture, mining and conservation can be found Benn explained.  “The policy is all-embracing and… either prescriptively or descriptively will tell us these are the areas we should focus if you want to do a certain kind of business,” Benn added.

The creation of the policy is being undertaken under the four-year Mainstreaming Sustainable Land Development and Management (SLDM) project which is being funded by the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF) at a cost of US$14.8M.

The SLDM project will be officially launched at the end of this month. The completion of the National Land Policy is part of component one of the project which seeks to mainstream SLDM in policy, institutional and governance mechanisms to prevent degradation and restore degraded lands.

Apart from the countrywide consultations with stakeholders, Benn said the Policy will also take into consideration recommendations from the Land Commission of Inquiry that was commissioned by President David Granger.

“I’m sure that they are going to have recommendations which the land policy is going to take into account so we look forward to receiving that sort of recommendation from them as well,” Benn said.

The GL&SC is targeting the end of 2018 to complete the National Land Policy however, Benn said the Commission will be open to additional input over the course of the four-year SLDM project.

 

By: Tiffny Rhodius

 

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