Dear Editor,
The report ‘Chinese Landing miner using planes to fly in fuel as village blocks road access – Toshao’ in Kiskadee Watch on October 25, 2026 (https://kiskadeewatch.com/guyana/chinese-landing-miner-using-planes-to-fly-in-fuel-as-village-blocks-road-access-toshao/ ), shows some of the long-term problems of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC). The Amerindian community has been defending its titled Amerindian Village Lands since 1976, but from 1995 the GGMC has persisted in referring to the Tassawini mine area as State Land. The community has copies of Guyana Lands & Surveys Commission (GLSC) boundary maps from 1976, 1999 and 2018, the latter two with GLSC plan numbers. The Tassawini mine lies well within the boundary, so uncertainty of position is not an issue. Since 2022, GGMC’s own Mineral Tenure online GIS (hyperlink to https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/790ce0003be5464a815be1862ff594d9) shows the 1-km buffer zone against licenced mining around the Chinese Landing boundary, so at least one office in the GGMC HQ recognises that the Tassawini mine is located on statutory Amerindian Village Land.
In spite of the community’s strong tenure, GGMC held a closed-bid auction for prospecting permit number 14/95 over the Tassawini mine, awarded to external gold-miner Wayne Vieira. The relevant GGMC Application Form for Prospecting Permit 5B, and the GGMC Prospecting Permit – medium scale – Form 5G – both carried the saving clause ‘with the exception of all lands lawfully located or held under title’. And two years later, in 1997, GGMC had issued an administrative policy against mining permits on Amerindian Lands, thus implementing section 111 of the Mining Act 1989, the clause which confirms the Amerindian right to ‘quiet enjoyment’ of their lands.
Parts of the prospecting permit were converted to mining permits on a medium scale, beginning with MPMS number 47/98. One year later, in May 1999, GGMC issued to Wayne Vieira 3 more Mining Permits Medium Scale from the area of Prospecting Permit PL 14/95: Mining Permit 23/01 (GS23:V-5/MP/000/99 for 975 acres), Mining Permit 24/01 (GS23:V-5/MP/001/99 for 942 acres), and Mining Permit 25/01(GS23:V-5/MP/002/99 for 811 acres), total with Mining Permit 47/98 (GS23:V-5/MP/002/99 dated 25 September 1998 for 685 acres) of 3,413 acres (in Press reports given as 3457 acres).
I have found no indication that either Wayne Vieira or GGMC informed or consulted with the Amerindian Village Council of Chinese Landing before this conversion in 1999. In spite of sustained opposition from the Amerindian community, GGMC has renewed these 1990s MPMS every five years. The MPMS should not have been issued in the first place without a valid village agreement, according to GGMC’s own written requirements. After the Amerindian Act 2006 entered into force in 2010, renewal of the MPMS should have been subject to two actions by GGMC, as required by section 53 (i) notification of the Village and (ii) due diligence to satisfy itself that the impact of mining on the Village will not be harmful.
These are just some of the violations by the GGMC of its own Mining Act 1989, policies and procedures against Chinese Landing which I found during a study in 2024 commissioned by the Village of Chinese Landing.
This is a time when the government of Guyana is protesting internationally its credentials as an environmentally friendly government acting for its Indigenous Peoples. Yet Ministers of government do nothing about the persistent errors by GGMC and instead provide support for an external miner whose GGMC-issued concessions have been invalid since 1995, no less than 31 years to date.
Yours truly,
Janette Bulkan
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