by Richard Nyberg

01 June 2000

Georgetown, Guyana: Sanna-Leena Rautanen's title of environmental researcher is a bit of a misnomer. The UN Volunteer's teaching responsibilities at the University of Guyana range from courses in civil engineering to social studies -- a tall order in the "Land of Many Waters".

Her skills are in big demand.

"I believe that volunteers, as highly qualified professional people, are very important in filling a gap of missing foreign academic staff," she says.

The Finnish UNV is busy. She has worked with the Environment Studies Unit, Department of Civil Engineering and the Department of Economics conducting courses from hydrology and wastewater engineering to environmental law. She also monitors student projects in such areas as drainage, water supply and sanitation.

Rautenen takes students to the region where she formerly worked as a volunteer with the British Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) -- Lethem near the the southern border with Brazil. There students can visit the Iwokrama International Rainforest Centre, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) project.

On behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency, Rautenen also took part in a UNDP-supported survey on waste management practices in Guyana. Her team conducted 200 interviews in the Rupununi Savannah in the interior of the country and another 60 in a coastal location. The objective was to collect information to be used in school and public educational materials.

"I find it quite exciting to be involved with such issues that I had previously only read about, such as Amerindians in the interior, rainforests, problems related to mining, logging and road projects, irrigation schemes and water-related issues," says the Finnish UNV.

Guyana, she says, has more in common with the Caribbean countries than its South American neighbours. "Geographically this Land of Many Waters (as the word "guyana" translates in one of the Amerindian languages) stretches from coastal wetlands and mangrove swamps acriss rice and sugar cane fields and major population centres to mountains of Pakaraimas, to rather untouched rainforests and to the Rupununi Savannah. From an environmental point of view this country is quite amazing."

Guyana is also called the Land of Six Peoples: Amerindians, Africans, East Indians, Europeans, Chinese and people of mixed race. The culture, notes Rautanen, is "as diverse as the background of these people".