Basjit Mahabir won’t let me in.
I’m trying to persuade Mr. Mahabir to open the padlocked gate of the Wales Estate, where he guards the ramshackle remains of a factory surrounded by miles of fallow sugar cane fields. The growing and grinding of sugar on this plantation about 10 miles from Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, ended seven years ago, and parts of the complex, its weathered zinc walls the color of rust, have been sold for scrap.
I plead my case. “I lived here when I was a little girl,” I say. “My father used to manage the field lab.” Mr. Mahabir is friendly, but firm. I’m not getting in.
The ruins are the vestiges of a sugar industry that, after enriching British colonizers for centuries, was the measure of the nation’s wealth when it achieved independence.
Now the estate is slated to become part of Guyana’s latest boom, an oil rush that is reshaping the country’s future. This nation that lies off the beaten track, population 800,000, is at the forefront of a global paradox: Even as the world pledges to transition away from fossil fuels, developing countries have many short-term incentives to double down on them.
Before oil, outsiders mostly came to Guyana for eco-tourism, lured by rainforests that cover 87 percent of its land. In 2009, the effort to combat global warming turned this into a new kind of currency when Guyana sold carbon credits totaling $250 million, essentially promising to keep that carbon stored in trees. Guyana’s leadership was praised for this planet-saving effort.
Six years later, Exxon Mobil discovered a bounty of oil under Guyana’s coastal waters. Soon the company and its consortium partners, Hess and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation, began drilling with uncommon speed. The oil, now burned mostly in Europe, is enabling more global emissions — and producing colossal wealth.
Do you have a connection to Guyana?
It’s still early days in Guyana’s transformation, and the events unfolding in Guyana will have a notable impact worldwide. We’d like to hear your perspectives on where the country is heading. We especially want to engage Guyanese people and those with family or ancestral connections to the country.
