Project Director of the Guyana Marine Conservation Society, Annette Arjoon-Martins, recently highlighted the role of Indigenous girls in mangrove conservation under Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) 2030. Speaking during an episode of United for Biodiversity: The Alliance Podcast aired on Friday, Arjoon-Martins described their achievements as a “full circle moment” in technology-driven environmental monitoring.
She explained how young women from the Warrau communities in the Barima-Mora Passage have been trained in drone and remote-operated vehicle (ROV) technology to support blue carbon mapping. Explaining where it all started some years ago, Arjoon-Martins said, “So what we did is we set out to find girls who had an interest in technology…we basically put them through the drone flying programme. It started out with the UAVs (Unmanned aerial vehicles) aerial drones to get the basic drone monitoring skills.”
This training has led to those involved being paid every six months to monitor the mangrove forest, to collect the data, and report any infractions to the relevant agencies. The initiative is supported by the Inter-American Development Bank innovation and entrepreneurship laboratory (IDB Lab).
From basic training to participating in cutting-edge environmental monitoring projects, she noted that these girls are part of the team that is working with a project with the National Agricultural Research and Extension institute (NAREI) to map the blue carbon in the mangroves.
“So our girls, who started out several years ago under the IDB lab funded initiative, are now being paid for this very important ecosystem service,” Arjoon-Martins noted.
She also disclosed that the leader of that group who is from the Aruka community is instructing other youngsters on how to utilize drones.
In fact, Arjoon-Martins shared that sea turtle monitoring initiatives, using drones and thermal imagery to monitor the sea turtles coming to shore has improved the efficiency of the entire sea turtle programme.
“So it makes it easier for the actual rangers to go out there and tag the turtles, rather than go out and just walk the beach hoping to find a turtle nesting.
“You could launch a drone at night. The thermal imagery picks up the heat from the sea turtle’s body, you know that there’s a turtle coming up to this particular beach. You send out your rangers and they do their job,” she said.
Offering a message to young women across Guyana, Arjoon-Martins urged them not to limit their dreams, pointing to the success of the Barima-Mora Passage girls as inspiration.
“Look at what our Barima-Mora Passage girls drone unit did, and look at what they are doing, and look at where they are going; they’re not special to any other girl that has, you know, a big dream, and could be enabled to pursue that dream. So don’t limit yourself…” she said. To this end, Arjoon-Martins underscored that with the right support, young women can lead significant conservation and technological advancements, for biodiversity protection.
