In the News
Nearly 360 Bird Species Seen on Tourism Familiarization Trip
For 11 days in March, a group of birdwatching tour operators, journalists, and photographers from North America and the UK poked around Guyana’s rainforests and savannahs in search of birds, mammals, and local culture on a tourism product familiarization (fam) trip organized by the Guyana Sustainable Tourism Initiative (GSTI), a joint project of the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) and the United States Agency for International Development / Guyana Trade and Investment Support (USAID/GTIS) project.
The fanatical birders included Tim Appleton, the originator and co-founder of British Birdwatching Fair; Bill Thompson, III, Editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest; Dr. Steve Banner, director of Wildlife & Wilderness; Pelin Karaca of Holbrook Travel; Andrew Haffenden, owner and founder of Nature Travel Specialists; Charlie Vogt, General Manager of Andean Birding; Karen Strauss, journalist, photographer, coordinator of the
San Diego Bird Festival, and trip leader for Avian Adventures; and Eric Lindberg, freelance travel writer and photographer.
In ten days, the group visited many of Guyana’s top nature destinations and identified nearly 360 different bird species, including Harpy Eagle, Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock, Capuchinbird, Black Manakin, Hoatzin, Hoary-throated Spinetail, Blood-colored Woodpecker, Toco Toucan, and Scarlet Macaw. A few mammals also managed to grab their attention, including Tayra, Giant River Otter, Kinkajou, Spider Monkey, Red Howler Monkey, and Capybara.
Reflecting on the trip, Tim Appleton said, “the trip was an outstanding success and I predict it will result in lots of interest from media and tour companies alike.” To read more, visit the Press Releases page (http://www.guyanabirding.com/trellis/Releases) of the website.
Guyana Featured at the 2010 Educational Travel Conference
Representatives from the Guyana Sustainable Tourism Initiative (GSTI) and the Guyana-based tour operator, Wilderness Explorers, recently represented Guyana at the 2010 Educational Travel Conference (ETC) in Providence, Rhode Island. Started 25 years ago by the Educational Travel Community (www.travelearning.com), the ETC is the founding conference for travel planners, tour operators, destinations, and media involved in alumni, museum, zoo, conservation, and nonprofit educational travel.
Attendance at the ETC is part of the new GSTI strategy to make more impact in the North American market while expanding beyond birding tourism. Connections made at conferences such as the ETC will help improve Guyana’s tourism products for additional markets beyond birding, including community-based, general nature, conservation-based, research-based, adventure, and educational tourism. As the GSTI moves forward, a new focus will be put on working with Guyana’s tourism suppliers to increase and improve guide training, product development, transportation logistics, and ecotourism standards.
Guyana: The Word Continues to Spread
Once again, we’re pleased to have a lengthy list of Guyana-related media to write about. Individual links are below, but be sure to visit our Guyana in the News (http://www.guyanabirding.com/trellis/External_News) page for Guyana stories dating back to 2006.
Guyana is off to a great start for media coverage in 2010. In the UK, The Observer asked several Travel Gurus to name their hotspots for 2010. Explorer and TV presenter Benedict Allen named Guyana, saying, “I am hoping to reach the remotest jungle on the planet, which seems to be in southern Guyana. Here, jaguars roam without fear of man, and there are lengthy anacondas and other great beauties and beasts.” Read the entire article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/jan/03/travel-gurus-2010-guide?page=2.
On the other side of the pond, in February the esteemed travel section of The New York Times ran a feature titled, “Into the Wild in Lush Guyana” (http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/travel/07journeys.html?scp=3&sq=guyana&st=cse). Click the link to read about the author’s trip from Georgetown to Dadanawa Ranch and the wildlife she saw along the way, including Giant Anteaters and Jabiru Storks.
In March, Condé Nast Traveler ran an excellent article on Guyana called, “Avatar on Earth” (http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/502351?pageNumber=1). The author uses his experience at a jungle survival course near Surama village to tell of Guyana’s plans to make live trees more valuable than dead ones. Also in March, The National (http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100313/TRAVEL/100319959/1087/LIFE) newspaper ran a story about the English-speaking country “[p]erched on the shoulder of South America like a gaudy parrot.” That was followed by an important piece on Mongabay.com (http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0228-hance_giants.html) about the decision of the Guyana government to ban gold mining in the ‘Land of the Giants’ – the Rewa Head.
In April, Guyana’s birds were the stars of an article in Winging It: The Official Newsletter of the American Birding Association (http://www.guyanabirds.com/UserFiles/File/News%20Articles/Guyana%20ABA%20article%20by%20Rick%20Wright_April2010.pdf). In the piece, Rick Wright states: “Just why international ornitho-tourism should for so long have passed Guyana by is a mystery.”
Look for a Guyana feature in the July/August 2010 issue of Bird Watcher’s Digest (written by Julie Zickefoose, whose blog always deserves a visit, whether or not you search for the thousands of words on Guyana she wrote last year), but in the meantime visit Bill Thompson’s blog (he’s the magazine’s editor) to read his ongoing posts about his recent trip to Guyana.
We also have a couple of stories to report from December 2009. In the online version of Audubon Magazine (http://www.audubonmagazine.org/webexclusives/guyana-webexclusives.html), “Two Roads Diverge in Guyana” examines how “Guyana offers a near-pristine landscape brimming with birds and other wildlife. Now faced with pressure to boost its economy, the South American country must decide how important preserving its ecological treasures is on its path to development.”
President Jagdeo Receives 2010 Champions of the Earth Award
In honor of Earth Day on April 22, Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo received the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) 2010 Champions of the Earth award, the UN's highest award for environmental leadership. President Jagdeo received the award in a special category for 2010 – Biodiversity and Ecosystems Management.
UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner announced the 2010 winners at the Earth Day and Business for the Environment Global Summit in Seoul, Korea. About Guyana's President, Steiner said, "President Jagdeo is a powerful advocate of the need to conserve and more intelligently manage the planet's natural and nature-based assets. He has recognized more than most the multiple Green Economy benefits of forests in terms of combating climate change, but also in terms of development, employment, improved water supplies and the conservation of biodiversity."
The awards were established in 2004 and recognize achievements in areas of Entrepreneurial Vision; Policy and Leadership; Science and Innovation; Inspiration and Action; and Biodiversity and Ecosystems Management. The other winners of this year's awards were: His Excellency Mohamed Nasheed, the President of the Maldives and international climate change campaigner; Prince Mostapha Zaher, Afghanistan's Director General of the National Environmental Protection Agency; Dr. Taro Takahashi, Japanese earth scientist and pioneer of research into how the oceans cycle carbon; Ms. Zhou Xun, Chinese actress and popular green lifestyle guru; and Vinod Khosla, American venture capitalist, green energy entrepreneur and co-founder of Sun Microsystems.
Surama Village's Sydney Allicock Receives Prestigious Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence
Guyana’s leading environmental and community leader, Sydney Allicock, recently added to his long list of awards when he accepted the prestigious Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence on April 17 in Trinidad. According to the ANSA McAL Foundation, the Awards Programme – often referred to as the “Nobel of the Caribbean” – “celebrates the excellence and the potential of Caribbean people, working for the benefit of their region, our home.”
Allicock received the 2010 Laureate for Public and Civic Contributions. His fellow Laureates in 2010 include Mr. Adrian Augier from St. Lucia for Arts & Letters and Prof. Kathleen Coard of Jamaica for Science & Technology. The Laureate comes with a monetary award of TT$500,000 (US$78,665) to support the winners’ work and professional development.
Executive Director for Surama Eco-Tourism, Allicock is considered a pioneer of community-based tourism in Guyana. For more than two decades, Allicock has worked tirelessly to develop and promote ecotourism at Surama village, an enterprise that now employs roughly 70 members of the community and brings in 60 percent of the overall income for the village.
Nearly 75 percent of Surama’s homes see income from tourism activities. Long an example for community tourism in Guyana, the village received national recognition when Surama Eco-Lodge was selected as the Educational Travel Conference 2009 Responsible Tourism Showcase Honoree.
Photo: Kristian De Silva
Allicock is also credited for pioneering Amerindian Heritage Day, which is now a national holiday in Guyana, and he has worked closely with the Iwokrama International Centre since their inception in 1996. For more on Allicock, please visit http://www.ansacaribbeanawards.com/PublicCivicContributions-MRSYDNEYALLICOCK.htm and to learn more about tourism at Surama, visit www.suramaecolodge.com.
Katie Spotz, the Youngest Person to Row an Entire Ocean Solo, Lands Safely in Guyana
On March 14, 22-year-old Katie Spotz arrived in Georgetown, Guyana after rowing alone across the Atlantic Ocean for 2,817 miles. It took Katie, who left from Dakar, Senegal, in Western Africa on January 3, 70 days 5 hours 22 minutes to complete her adventure.
Katie and Liv, the name of her 19-foot yellow wooden rowboat, arrived in Georgetown to a large welcome party planned by the Guyana Tourism Authority. Katie didn’t cross the Atlantic just for kicks – she has managed to raise more than US$83,000 for Blue Planet Run Foundation (http://blueplanetrun.org), a nonprofit organization that works to provide safe drinking water to those who need it most around the world. Visit Katie’s blog, www.rowforwater.com, to learn more about her incredible journey and to make a donation to Blue Planet Run Foundation.
To stick with the Rupununi theme for our tenth newsletter, we would like to draw your attention to a new website by Graham Watkins: www.rupununi.org. The site beautifully profiles Guyana’s North Rupununi in words and photos, and it makes us pretty excited for the new book Graham is putting together with acclaimed nature photographers Peter Oxford and Renee Bish: Rupununi: Rediscovering a Lost World. Read the site now and be sure to buy a copy of the book when it's published in October 2010.
