High School Journalists Find Themselves Face-to-Face with Guyanese Head of State

Standing in front of Dr. Robert Lang's origami masterpiece, President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana emphatically voiced his displeasure with the world's lack of attention to a global crisis: the disappearance of tropical rainforests worldwide. Guyana, a small country situated in South America, has faced a large amount of pressure from investors to cut down some of its 50 million acres of rainforest. However, Mr. Jagdeo has not allowed this movement to substantially progress, and is still very passionate about putting an end to these often-unnecessary acts.
During his speech, the President acknowledged that “developing countries don’t have another option for income,” which is why deforestation is so common. In order to find an environmentally conscious solution leading to sustainable development, Jagdeo went on to strategize that “low carbon [emission] efforts can help the economy” of his country, and of all others suffering similar economic depression. He then stated that to solve the problem at hand, and make economic growth and stability possible, "we want to demonstrate the wisdom of this generation." Following his speech, Jagdeo put aside a few minutes for questions from the press.
As student reporters with full press privileges for ePals, a global community of online classrooms, we were the lucky two who got to interview President Jagdeo.
After being pushed aside by CNN reporters, it was now our chance to grab for glory as we had our one-on-one interview with the Guyanese head of state. President Jagdeo was able to spend over five minutes answering our questions, and dealing with our pesky desire to get quotes out of him in order to understand his point of view on the issue. Although five minutes seem like a mere fraction of time, we can attest that it is a considerable amount of face time with a person in such demand, without even taking into account the fact that other major press outlets, such as MTV or CNN, were not able to lock down the President for as long. Despite the verbal protesters voicing their disapproval of their leader in the background, we were able to get our question and answer session underway.
To start out our interview, we asked Mr. Jagdeo what he thought about other world leaders’ involvement in the preservation of rainforests. He quickly declared "There has been a lot of rhetoric among world leaders and many organizations, but the actions to save the forest have not matched the rhetoric." This lack of awareness and commitment is the problem that has given Guyana's leader such headaches in the past. To find a solution to this crucial issue, Jagdeo proposes that we "move beyond recognizing how important forests are to the world, and provide resources and policies to make sure that the rainforests remain there forever and become a part of the climate change solution." This thought encompasses the idea of the TeamEarth campaign, and appears to be the key to success.
But, as Bharrat Jagdeo made clear, though the solution is ideal, it is easier said than done. As he cleverly put it, "the one variable that remains unanswered is that preserving the forest cannot come at the expense of people getting food to eat, so [the world leaders and organizations] must create alternatives to preserve the rainforest and yet allow people to have a job and prosper." Many leaders have been skeptical of this green-solution to sustainability, as, according to Jagdeo, they are faced with the conflicting question of, “What if we make all these efforts, and there is no corresponding response from the developed world?… how will [ devolping countries be motivated] to go down this same path?”
As Jagdeo has come to learn, Conservation International's goal is even harder to achieve with today’s economy, as “People are using the recession to weaken their commitment to provide adequate financing to make the Copenhagen agreement work.”
To add to his argument, he used a real-life example. "If AIG was too big to fail…how much bigger is our planet? So if we can find the will and resources to tackle the financial crisis, we can do so for the environment.”
Now, many may be wondering why climate change is an issue so close Mr. Jagdeo's heart. Today, the effects of deforestation are already impacting 77% of the Guyanese population living on the country’s narrow coastal belt. A reason for this is the fact that a good portion of Guyana’s coast is below sea level. As Jagdeo made sure to mention, adaptation is very important to Guyana, as it concerns actions taken to reduce the damage of the current and expected climatic changes. However, the magnitude of resources needed to solve the problem of rising sea levels, is incredible, as “[Guyana] need[s] about a billion dollars just do deal with adaptation.”
It is important to note that he also accepts reality, as global warming and climate change will inevitably occur, regardless the efforts put in by people all over the world. It is the scale of damage that Jagdeo hopes can be reduced.
After looking at this general issue, our final question was certainly one of our most essential, as we asked him what role Team Earth, ePals, and more importantly students could play in this fight against climate change. He smiled, and said that "if we work as a team, the message becomes much more effective, and gets out to many more people around the world in many countries." This essentially sent out a challenge to people all over the world to help Team Earth with it’s goal of global awareness. By having students actively involve their parents and peers, the President believes “that if [this] were to happen on the scale we hope it will, then governments will be forced to pay attention to the issue,” ending with a solution to the world's problems.
All in all, after being screened by several secret service agents, blocked out by towering body guards, and fighting for our face time among giants in the news world, we, Luisa and Thibaut, came out of this experience having achieved something that few 16-year-olds can claim to have done. Not only was the fact that we got to interview a head of state spectacular in itself, but the down-to-earth nature that President Jagdeo had was incredibly humbling, as he was thrilled to take pictures, interact, and most importantly professional, as he looked us straight into the eyes, something that many appear to lack when they achieve such high heights in the public eye.

(note: this article was co-written by Luisa Majnoni d’Intignano)