Guyana: The wildlife teacher in a class of her own.
Discussion details
In the remote South Rupununi region of Guyana, an excited group of young students is heading outside for a lesson in nature conservation. But this is no ordinary class, and no ordinary teacher.
Leading the school wildlife club for an afternoon of field studies is Kim Spencer, a young teacher who has packed more into her short career than many do in a lifetime. As the group heads further into the green savannah landscape, Kim encourages the students to look out for rare wild animals and birds.
“Teachers are important for our communities,” says Kim, who is leading around 25 children from Sand Creek Secondary School, where she works as a maths teacher, on a field trip. “We are privileged to guide children for their future, which is something we should take seriously. Our children are our future. Everyone wants a good future, right?”
Kim - a member of the Wapichan indigenous tribe - was born and brought up in South Rupununi. “I’m very lucky to live here,” she says. “It’s a biodiversity hotspot, a huge area of savannah, rivers, wetlands and mountains. If you go into the remote places you can find lots of different species - that’s the beauty of it, there are still a lot of wild animals here. It’s stunningly beautiful”
Guyana is one of the greenest countries in the world and is a net carbon sink - its forests capture and store more carbon than it emits. Guyana, together with Suriname and Gabon, is considered a ‘High Forest Low, Deforestation’ country, and is one of the world’s top three most forested countries. Despite this impressive track record, however, there are concerns about the impacts of climate change and deforestation.
In 2022, Guyana and the EU signed two key agreements to further protect the country’s forests and biodiversity. The first, a Forest Partnership agreement, is aimed at “enhancing the role of Guyana’s forests in sustainable and inclusive national development, and addressing challenges related to deforestation, forest degradation, climate change and loss of biodiversity.” This was followed by an agreement on the sustainable trade of legal timber, signed between the EU and Guyana at the COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal. The Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) - part of the EU Global Gateway strategy - means timber buyers based in the EU will have the assurance that forest products from Guyana are legal.
As well as her teaching job, Kim works for the South Rupununi Conservation Society (SRCS), a grass-roots organisation which has been protecting nature for more than two decades. SRCS works closely with the UN FAO’s Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) programme in Guyana, funded by the EU. Implementing partners include CIFOR, FAO, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD). The work of SRCS was recently recognised with an award from Chicago’s Field Museum as one of Guyana’s “most inspiring and effective local conservation groups.”
“After I finished high school I stayed in Rupununi working with SRCS as a volunteer, because I wanted to find out more about the wildlife and the challenges in the region,” adds Kim, who has risen to become the SRCS Secretary. “I was especially interested in birds. I fell in love with the work, which made me appreciate Rupununi even more and realise that I want to protect these species for later generations.”
Kim aims to get as many students out into the field to explore the natural world for themselves, teaching them through practical activities such as camera trapping, bird watching, field trips, scavenger hunts, map making and more. This approach, pioneered by SRCS, has been so successful it’s been rolled out to 12 other schools in the area - 500 indigenous young people from 13 communities have attended classes and 55 teachers, including 33 women, have been trained to lead lessons.
As she and the school wildlife club explore deeper into the bush, Kim explains some of the wildlife they might encounter. “If we’re lucky we might spot an anteater walking along or a deer - but they’re very rare,” she tells them. “And look out for the red siskin!”
Kim credits the critically-endangered red siskin - a small, finch-like bird with distinctive brightly-coloured plumage - for sparking her passion for nature conservation. “A small population was discovered in South Rupununi in 2000, and since then SRCS has been working to protect them. Bird watchers come from all over the world to see them,” she says proudly.
Along with the red siskin, SRCS also runs programmes to research and protect other endangered species such as giant anteaters and river turtles. Many species are threatened by the bush fires which destroy larges swathes of their habitat. “Fires are one of the biggest challenges. One morning I went to check a flock of red siskin and a fire had completely destroyed their sleeping area - they were all gone. There was no more green, no more habitat - it was really sad. People set fires to clear land for grazing cattle, or farming. Sometimes the kids just set fires for fun. It’s really disappointing.”
Kim hopes that by encouraging youngsters to take an interest in their natural environment at an early age, she’s sowing the seeds for a more sustainable future. She’s especially keen for more girls to get involved. “One of my dreams is to inspire students and to prepare them for a career in conservation or wildlife management,” she says. “I’m focused on indigenous girls, because a lot of them are very shy at school and don’t want to be actively involved.”
Recently selected as a Fellow in Conservation International’s Amazon Indigenous Women’s Fellowship (AIWF) programme, Kim is now running a project focusing on training and mentoring ten girl students - as well as the members of the wildlife club - to inspire, empower, and build the leadership capacity of young indigenous women in Rupununi to become environmental leaders. At the same time, SRCS is actively recruiting women rangers and paying them a small fee so they can pay for child care while they work in the field.
“I was very proud and honoured to be awarded the Fellowship,” says Kim. “It really motivates me to continue and to fulfil my dream. If I can teach these young women about the importance of conserving nature, I feel they will make some really wise choices for the future.”
Photo Gallery : https://capacity4dev.europa.eu/library/photo-gallery-guyana-wildlife-te…
Photos © Kim Spencer / South Rupununi Conservation Society
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