Livelihoods, health under threat as miners’ grip on Chinese Landing tightens

Although both the government and the National Toshaos Council (NTC) have promised to send high-level teams into the Region One indigenous community of Chinese Landing to ascertain the level of devastation caused by miners, they have yet to materialise while mining activities have intensified.

The incursion by miners into the indigenous village has been continually raised with various government ministers and successive NTC Executive bodies but the community has not seen any real relief. Its leaders say miners not only threaten the livelihood of the villagers but also blatantly breach the Amerindian Act with help from members of the Guyana Police Force.

Chinese Landing, a Carib indigenous community, is a remote village along the Barama River in the Barima-Waini region and it received its land title in 1976 under then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. The village received its Certificate of Title on August 10, 2018, for 30.06 square miles or 19,241 acres of land.