Gender on the Frontlines Conference opens in Georgetown

Gender on the Frontlines: Roles, Risks and Urgency in a Changing Environment opened on Monday morning with calls for greater recognition of community protectors including women and children, all of whom depend on clean communities and greater protection of the environment.

The conference, which is being held by the University of Guyana, Turkeyen Campus featured an opening address by Environmental Engineer and educator Professor Maya Trotz. Trotz pointed out that as the conference seeks to highlight environmental health, it has also placed a spotlight on risks – “It is about how risk is carried unevenly. And it is about who notices danger first,” Trotz noted, adding that “the people most often described as vulnerable are not only vulnerable. They are early warners, constant monitors, and innovators, caregivers, grandmothers, market women, cleaners, nurses, teachers, fishers, farmers, tour guides, Indigenous communities, housewives, and women holding households together often detect environmental change before institutions do — and in Guyana, before the country does,” Trotz said.

Understanding the risks remain an important task for Guyanese who are guardians within their communities, “as warners”, Trotz posited, many Guyanese know already know these risks, “they know when water smells different, when boiling or filters are needed because what comes through the tap is not potable, when black tanks and buckets are needed because water comes at a trickle or does not come at all, when children’s skin changes, when fish move, when a reef looks sick, when flooding follows a new pattern. They may not call it data, science, or infrastructure, but their care is an early warning infrastructure,” Trotz underscored.

Additionally, massive changes in Guyana supported by its oil wealth are many. Trotz listed changes to infrastructure, migration, coastal risk, land pressures, mining, and waste. “We need a framework that asks different questions.” she demanded, “Not only: what are we building or earning, but who is exposed, displaced, and paying the cost? Not only: what do models predict, but who has been warning, innovating, and teaching institutions to learn?”.

Trotz also pointed out that this conference allows key actors to build the framework that asks key questions including; who defines stewardship, who detects danger before it is officially named, and how care can build systems where people do not have to be heroic just to survive.

Professor Stafford Griffith, Chairman of the University of Guyana’s Transitional Management Committee in welcoming participants said that the conference comes at a time when, as a rapidly developing country, Guyanese much recognise the need to put in place measures to assure “the balanced participation of all citizens in the development process without gender, discrimination, and the provision of equitable benefits to all irrespective of gender. In this regard, Professor Griffith encouraged the feminist movement to continue being a “strong advocate and leader” in support of these measures.

Akola Thompson, Managing Director of Tamùkke pointed out that the conference will be exploring how extractive industries, land, and gender justice intersect in Guyana. This, she said, is an important conversation as Guyana’s economy continues to grow. “We have come quite a long way from being regularly touted behind Haiti as the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, the conditions that brought about that descriptor: the neocolonial hold, institutional corruption, weak systems and vulnerable environments continue to coalesce to impact our most vulnerable groups,” Thompson pointed out.
She also added that while it is those on the frontlines that will be hit first and the hardest, no one will ever truly be spared from the climate crisis. In some ways, it will be an equalising force for us, but first it will amplify the existing class, race and gender disparities in ways we frankly haven’t seen before. Thompson said that conversations with community members highlight how much their lives have been changing due to both the impacts of climate change and the country’s expansion of extractive industries. “Guyana holds the boast of being one of the only countries able to feed itself, but when has that been a reality for many? The price for vegetables, fruits and dried goods in the past three years have risen so sharply that many families have shifted their eating habits. Many women are reporting having to ration meals weekly”.

Thompson also touched on Indigenous communities which are often hailed as food secure but said that “many are facing these same challenges as their diets change due to the impacts of shifting weather patterns, and the economic drivers of extraction”. Pointing to a field visit to Parabara women were making the choice to either eat mercury laden fish or stop using their rivers entirely. In Guyana’s capital, Thompson said that the environmental impacts of expansive construction projects have disrupted living and social patterns for many. She highlighted noise pollution, chronic respiratory illnesses due to constant dust. “These are the realities we face now, what might we envision the next decade looks like as gold extraction expands, and oil solidifies its place in our ecosystem?” she asked.

Dr Lisa Edwards, Director of the Institute for Gender Studies lauded the partnership with Tamùkke. Reflecting on the 10-year anniversary of the Institute, Dr Edwards noted that many of the conversations raised more than 40 years ago by the Women’s Unit at that time, still relevant today. “I look back at the women’s unit set in the 80s and when I read some of the archival documents from the unit, there were conversations around the environment, agriculture, childcare,” she noted, “What is telling, these conversations remain relevant today when we talk about gender, it is not just a talk about violence but looking at it through systems, looking at it through today’s conference focusing on the environment, land rights, knowledge and thinking about what our future can look like”.

Gender on the Frontlines continues tomorrow Tuesday at the University of Guyana’s George Walcott Lecture Theatre. Over the two days, there would be presentations and panel discussions on Land Rights, Indigenous Knowledge in Ecological Stewardship, addressing violence, advancing rights, and strengthening institutions for gender equality, Reimagining Development towards a Decolonial Future, Gendered Bodies, Health, and Invisible Harm, Building and Sustaining Communities using Feminist Futures and Care as Praxis and Advancing Justice, Rights and Collective Action for Equitable Societies.

The conference is being held by Tamùkke in partnership with the University of Guyana’s Institute of Gender Studies.