Our Home is our Promised Land
Augusta Henriques is General Secretary of Tiniguena, an organization dedicated to supporting sustainable development in Guinea-Bissau by fostering citizen engagement in the conservation and respect for natural and cultural resources. The following is an excerpt from her opening address to Inter Pares' 30th Anniversary Symposium in April 2005. The complete version of Augusta's keynote address is available on Inter Pares' Web site, in French only.
I live in Guinea-Bissau, a tiny country, ignored by the international community, situated between Senegal and Guinea-Conakry. It is a very beautiful country, rich in natural and cultural resources, but impoverished by policies imposed by the Bretton Woods institutions in the 1980s: structural adjustment, the liberalization of our economy, and the abandonment of our social sector by the State. As a result of these policies, socio-economic disparities have widened, corruption is further entrenched, poverty and violence have intensified, and we witnessed a year of armed conflict from June 1998 to 1999. Since then, Guinea-Bissau has been plunged into instability.
In the face of all this, how do we maintain hope for the future? How do we contribute to social change? How do we help Guineans believe in their capacities to change their present conditions and their future? How do we mobilize citizen action to challenge the limits of our country, and our own limits?
Since its foundation in 1991, Tiniguena, the NGO that I lead, has worked to foster social change in Guinea-Bissau with the support of various international partners, Inter Pares being one of the most engaged. Tiniguena works at the local level, supporting community-based conservation initiatives for greater local control, and sustainable management of their natural resources. We also work at the national level, carrying out educational, awareness-raising and advocacy campaigns to promote the conservation and appreciation of our country's natural and cultural heritage.
Last February, I was in Mali to attend a meeting of the Coalition for the Defense of African Genetic Heritage, which was established in January of 2004. We participated in the second Forum on African Cotton, where peasants debated issues concerning the production and promotion of cotton, international trade, and the risks associated with the introduction of Monsanto's infamous genetically-modified cotton known as "Bt cotton." The motto of this meeting was: "Resistance, creativity, and solidarity."
I believe that our response needs to be resistance to manipulation and barbarism, for the preservation of resources that are essential to life, for control over our own existence, for the promotion of values and ways of life that are healthy and harmonious.
Our actions will require creativity, because we are caught in a vicious cycle from which we need to escape, and to do this will require plenty of imagination.
Solidarity is essential since it is excessive individualism and egotism that has led us to this dead-end of self-destruction. Only by reflecting, by acting together, by reinventing new ways and means of solidarity, will we be able to find our way back to the path of humanity's true vocation.
But we need to dare to dream that change is within our grasp, that the promised land is one we can build. To dream – not to escape, but to dream – is a right.
Inter Pares gratefully acknowledges the International Development Research Centre for its support of the activities featured in this Bulletin.
Protecting the Commons
While Augusta was with us during our 30th anniversary, she received news that Tiniguena's work had led to the official recognition of the Urok Management Plan and of the new Communal Marine Protected Area by the government of Guinea-Bissau for the Urok islands (Formosa, Nago, and Chedia). This recognition provides the Bijagos peoples of Urok with exclusive access and resource use rights over areas that they identified as being of critical importance, thus contributing to the islanders' food security, protecting the biodiversity of the islands' coastal areas from the commercial fishery and unsustainable practices, and empowering communities to manage the resources on which they depend. For more information about the Urok Management Plan, please see Inter Pares' September 2004 Bulletin.
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Inter Pares works overseas and in Canada in support of self-help development groups, and in the promotion of understanding about the causes, effects and solutions to under-development and poverty.
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