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By Gaiutra Bahadur
Photographs via Keisha Scarville
Basjit Mahabir probably wouldn’t let me in.
I go outside to convince Mr. Mahabir to open the padlocked door of Wales Estate, where he keeps the dilapidated remains of a factory surrounded by miles of fallow sugar cane fields. Sugar cultivation and milling at the plantation, about 10 miles from Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, ended seven years ago, and parts of the complex, with its weathered rust-colored zinc walls, were sold for scrap.
I’m pleading my case. ” I lived here when I was little,” I say. “My father ran the lab. ” Mr. Mahabir is friendly but firm. I don’t pass the step.
The ruins are the remnants of a sugar industry that, after enriching British colonizers for centuries, was the measure of the country’s wealth at the time of its independence.
Today, the property is expected to be part of Guyana’s new boom, an oil rush that is reshaping the country’s future. This off-the-beaten-path country of 800,000 people is at the forefront of a global paradox: Even as the world commits to moving away from fossil fuels, emerging countries have plenty of short-term incentive to redouble their efforts.
Before oil, foreigners came to Guyana primarily for ecotourism, attracted by the rainforests that cover 87% of its territory. In 2009, efforts to fight global warming turned this currency into a new type of currency when Guyana sold carbon credits totaling $250 million. necessarily promising to keep that carbon stored in the trees. Guyana’s leaders were praised for this effort to save the planet.
Six years later, Exxon Mobil discovered an oil reserve beneath Guyana’s coastal waters. Soon, the company and its consortium partners, Hess and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, began drilling at high speed. Oil, which is now basically burned in Europe, generates more global emissions and produces colossal wealth.
Guyana’s transformation is still in its infancy, and the events unfolding there will have a noticeable effect around the world. We’d like to hear your perspectives on where the country is headed. That is, we need to involve Guyanese and those who have family circles or ancestral ties to the country.
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