One-off cash grant to fisherfolk solves nothing

On May 12th, the UK Guardian ran a story, ‘We can’t eat a new road,’ in which fishermen talked about their livelihoods drying up, and linked it to the oil and gas sector in Guyana that is operating and expanding with official blessing and full immunity and impunity. This connection between oil and the decline in fish stocks was repeated by fisherfolk across seven communities from Regions 3,4,5, 7 and 8, where grassroots Red Thread women work and live.

The government’s response to this increasingly public concern has been to announce, with much fanfare, that fisherfolk will receive a one-off cash grant of $150,000, or just over two times a monthly public sector salary. Line up with your bowls for a handout, while Guyanese resources, our resources, are being depleted, extracted, destroyed, taken away, and the rich are getting richer. When the one off grant has been used up, what then? That doesn’t bring the fish back. The government ‘quoted’ an FAO study to argue that the declining fish stocks were not as a result of oil, but while we await the report’s publication, the FAO itself later described this as a ‘rapid study’ based on ‘available data’ between 2020-2021. In other words, no such definitive conclusion on a matter of such magnitude can be drawn from such a limited investigation.

A one-off cash grant to buy fisherfolk silence. Are we to be grateful? Meanwhile, the government continues to give the oil industry a free pass. Who are they really accountable to? Whose interests are they really protecting? Peter Tosh’s Downpressor Man is a fitting anthem to what is going on, to the growing gap between our political leaders and the people, between the rich and the poor (one line says ‘you drink your big champagne and laugh’), in this era of climate change. The second and third verses in particular are what the fisherfolk have been telling us.

Downpresser man - where you gonna run to? Downpresser man - where you gonna run to? Downpresser man - where you gonna run to? All along that day.

You gonna run to the sea But the sea will be boiling When you run to the sea The sea will be boiling

You gonna run to the rocks The rocks will be melting When you run to the rocks The rocks will be melting

When will we listen and finally wake up? It’s not a matter of if, but when. As the song instructs: ‘You can run but you can’t hide.’

Sincerely, Alissa Trotz