We cannot look at mining as though it only involves the extraction of non renewable resources

Aug 20, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
I am not interested in being wordy or to test the capacity for people to read and as such I shall get right into my view which I believe to be missing from most of the debates I have seen and heard on the current Linden and its associated issues from a developmental context.
Mining must be seen as Guyana’s opportunity to initiate the humanisation of the interior and nothing less. We cannot look at mining as though it only involves the extraction of non renewable resources.
It follows then that there must be a complete plan that addresses extraction and subsequent sustainable economic activity that will assure maximum utility of the country’s available land, aside from the coastal mud plain which constitutes a mere 5% of the country.
It means therefore that within the long term planned developmental concept, mining is just that first stage.
That mining towns become ghost towns is a stark reality of anthropological economic history, which need not always be the outcome. What is required then is a concerted effort to charter an economic course after the resource would have become depleted or is no longer viable.
I trust that whatever plans are being made, in place of plans that were seemingly absent, takes into consideration this view that will enable its relevance and suitability for generations.
Arun Sudesh Richard