Revival of mangrove forest at Better Hope underway
Last week an exercise involving the planting of approximately 12,000 black mangrove seedlings along the Better Hope foreshore commenced.
According to a press release from the Ministry of Agriculture, the exercise employs 18 people from the community and is expected to result in the restoration of 450 metres of black mangroves; natural recruitment and extension of mangrove forest east along the coastline; reduction in garbage dumping along the shoreline; increase in knowledge of local communities about the importance of mangroves; increase biodiversity within the restored forest; and reduction in overtopping and flooding in the community.
The project is being funded by the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) and the World Wildlife Fund’s Education for Nature. It is being executed by the Mangrove Reserve Producers Co-op with technical assistance from NAREI. More than a year after Orpheus Johnson was charged with the murder of Nandy Park miner Travis Rudder, a date for the beginning of the preliminary inquiry into the charge has finally been set.
On September 8, the PI into the murder charge will commence before Magistrate Judy Latchman.
On July 13, 2015, Johnson appeared before the now Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan where he was read six charges, including armed robbery, break and entry and gun and ammunition possession. Additionally, he was read two charges of murder, the first alleging that on April 22, 2015, at Agricola, East Bank Demerara, he murdered Gladstone George, who was shot to death execution-style aboard a minibus in full view of several passengers at Agricola, East Bank Demerara last year.
Johnson was committed to stand trial for George’s murder a little over two weeks ago.
The second murder charge alleges that on June 21, 2015, Johnson murdered Rudder, 26, at his home in Nandy Park, East Bank Demerara.
Rudder was killed in 2105 after shots fired through his bedroom window hit him, his fiancée and their 18month-old son. Rudder was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, while his fiancée, Mawanza Gill, who was shot seven times in the leg, sustained several broken bones. The child was shot to his abdomen.
Johnson had previously been charged with the murder of Kaneville resident Brendon Charles in 2009. It was alleged that between April 7 and April 8, 2009, at Kaneville, Johnson murdered Charles, whose body was discovered in a yard several streets away from his Lot 914 Fourth Field, Kaneville home.
In October, 2013, Johnson was freed in the High Court by Justice James Bovell-Drakes after a no-case submission was upheld in his favour.