Mongabay.com reports that "Environmental groups have written to Guyana president Bharrat Jagdeo over recent threats against Tony James, the President of the Amerindian Peoples Association in Guyana." Thanks to their spiritual beliefs, indigenous in Guyana as well as other autochtonous rainforest inhabitants may conflict with rainforest conservation programs (see also Vojtech Novotny's paper in Biotropica). However, regarding Central Guyana's rainforest, Read et al. (2010) concluded in a recent paper published by Journal of Latin American Geography that "researchers and managers should be careful to incorporate both the local environmental and cultural spiritual contexts in studies that inform biodiversity and sustainable resource-use management". The research team leader Joe Fragoso, former councillor and co-chair of the Conservation Committee of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation, declared that “They seem not to have caused any extinctions or major population reductions”. Co-author Luzar added that: “The Wapishana and Makushi seem to be very good stewards of their resources.”"

• Prominent indigenous leader gets death threats in Guyana, mongabay.com - December 17, 2010
• Rainforests, wildlife preserved by indigenous spiritual beliefs by Keith Rozendal, special to mongabay.com - November 15, 2010

North Rupununi, Central Guyana (© Tropicalbio.org)

• Joe Fragoso at ATBC Who's who
• Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development (IIC)
• Rupununi, The North Rupununi Wetlands 
• Rain Forest Conservation in a Tribal World: Why Forest Dwellers Prefer Loggers to Conservationists by Vojtech Novotny (BIOTROPICA)