Having failed in their campaign to stop the former People's Partnership government from extending the Solomon Hochoy Highway Extension Project into the Oropouche Lagoon, the Highway Reroute Movement (HRM) is now seeking foreign help.
In a media conference at the bank of the Oropouche River in Debe yesterday, HRM leader Dr Wayne Kublalsingh said they will now approach the Ramsar Secretariat in Switzerland to get the Oropouche Lagoon declared as an environmentally sensitive area under the Ramsar Convention.
Also known as the Convention of Wetlands, it is "the conservation and wise use of all wetlands through local and national actions and international cooperation, as a contribution towards achieving sustainable development throughout the world," its website states.
In explaining how this would help their cause, Kublalsingh said if the lagoon is adopted as a Ramsar site anyone seeking to carry out developmental works there will have to show how it would benefit or not harm the environment using proper scientific methods.
"I think it would mean that anytime anybody comes into this area to do any so-called developmental project, they will be sanctioned by proper science. They will have to account if they come to move homes, destroy agricultural lands, use the river or destroy mangroves," he said.
"You have to account for why you are doing it and you must have an overweening scientific and economic reason for destroying any of the assets here because it would be a protected area."
For the past four years the HRM has been attempting to stop the highway project from entering the lagoon through activism and court proceedings.
However, that attempt failed when Brazilian construction firm Construtora OAS moved into the Debe community and started building an interchange, several hundred metres of road and further earth works.
Yesterday, Kublalsingh said this new campaign had nothing to do with their protest against the Debe to Mon Desir leg of the highway, saying that much work would have been done by the time they get a response from the Ramsar Secretariat.
"What we want to do is something very specific. We don't want to save the Oropouche Lagoon, we can't save the Oropouche Lagoon. What we want to do is work with the communities here, school children and with government agencies like the IMA (Institute of Marine Affairs)," he said.
"I have a meeting with the head of IMA next week Thursday, along with the EMA, to work with them to approach the Ramsar Secretariat in Switzerland and ask them, show them the relevant information to work with us toward declaring this area of the Oropouche Lagoon as environmentally sensitive area."
Kublalsingh and chemical engineer Vanita Boodhai yesterday used kayaks to travel downstream the Oropouche River to take photographs and collect samples which would be sent for laboratory testing. Boodhai said the results would form part of a report that would be sent to the Ramsar Secretariat.