The answer has been a rising: yes. Now, in a world leading breakthrough under the UN-REDD program (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries), Norway has stepped forward with substantial support for Guyana, an Amazon Basin country 80% of whose land mass is largely untouched pristine rainforest.
Under the deal inked in Oslo between Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and President Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana is getting financial and other support for its model to make saving rainforests in developing nations an integral part of the global plan to avert climate change disaster. The two countries have agreed that their bilateral co-operation will be molded on a broad-based, transparent, inclusive, multi-stakeholder Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) under which Guyana will follow an eco-friendly development blueprint focused on strategies such as hydropower, drainage and irrigation to bring non-forested land into production, and eco-tourism.
They are leading the way to correct one of the shortcomings of the Kyoto Protocol by having forest preservation incorporated into its successor agreement which The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) is looking to have endorsed in Copenhagen, Denmark in December. The argument is that as a major contributor to global warming, deforestation needs to be significantly reduced in countries where it is already occurring, and avoided in countries where deforestation rates are still low. Kyoto has been mainly geared to reducing emissions in developed countries.
Two pivotal proposals for the post-Kyoto project is to broaden the climate change strategy from mainly mitigation efforts to strategies for adaptation, and the creation of global carbon-exchange markets in which carbon credits are the currency. That is, markets in which countries failing to achieve their emission-cut commitments can buy credits not only from those who have exceeded their emission reduction targets but also from countries which create carbon credits by voluntarily forgoing the traditional development trajectory involving logging, mining, forest clearing and agricultural activity in the rainforests – strategies that are economically beneficial to those countries but environmentally detrimental to the world.
Guyana makes the argument in its 57 page discussion draft for conservation titled, “Transforming Guyana’s Economy While Combating Climate Change”, that its pristine forests are its most valuable asset. The great majority of these forests are suitable for timber extraction and post-harvest agriculture. In addition, below their surfaces there are significant mineral deposits. And all this is located in the most bio-diverse area in the world with thousands of medicinal plants and species yet to be identified.
Iwokrama Conservation Reserve
The Iwokrama scientific, research and conservation reserve is proving that live trees can grow money by providing natural services through a unique alliance of local communities, business, and science.
Established in 1989 by the Government of Guyana to promote sustainable utilization of tropical rainforest in a manner that leads to lasting ecological, economic and social benefits, the 1,000,000 acre Forest and adjacent North Rupununi Wetlands combine in an extraordinary ecosystem encompassing a range of habitats which include over 200 lakes, braided rivers flowing over volcanic dykes, 1000 metre mountains, lowland tropical rain forests, palm forests, and seasonally flooded forests and savannahs. The area contains an extraordinary biodiversity, including over 475 species of birds and the highest recorded number of species of fish (over 400) and bats (over 90) in the world, for an area of comparable size.
The homeland of the Makushi people, Iwokrama Forest has been identified as a global hotspot for several plant families and contains several species of animals like the Giant Anteater that are threatened or extinct across most of their former geographic ranges. |
The deforestation that would accompany the normal development path for these natural resources would reduce the critical environmental services that Guyana’s forests provide to the world – bio-diversity, water regulation and carbon sequestration worth an estimated Economic Value to the World (EVW) of some US$40 billion as standing forests.
To put a dollar figure on the Economic Value to the Nation (EVN) of Guyana’s rainforest under traditional use the international consulting firm McKinsey & Company was engaged. They came back with an estimated value of between US$4.3 billion and $23.4 billion with a most likely estimate of US$5.8 billion; the wide range being driven by fluctuating prices for commodities such as logs, rice and palm oil.
Rainforest countries cannot, however, realize any of this value under Kyoto. While carbon trading exceeded US $130 billion in 2008 between developed countries employing man-made technologies in pursuance of their committed carbon reduction goals, under Kyoto no trading markets exist for environmental carbon sequestration.
As a consequence, individuals and companies in rainforest countries face powerful incentives to deforest. In turn, national and local governments face political pressure to use the forest for economic and employment benefit. Reconciling this tension between protecting rainforests and pursuing economically rational development is the core challenge that must be addressed to make forests worth more alive than dead.
The people of Guyana are willing and able to contribute to the battle against climate change providing a lower cost alternative – that is at between $2 and $11 dollars per tonne of CO2 compared to the alternatives as shown in the table, President Jagdeo stated.
If the right economic incentives are created, Guyana would be willing to consider putting almost its entire rainforest under internationally verifiable protection, providing that national sovereignty and the rights of Guyanese are not violated.
“We stand ready to work with others who share our view that the world needs to break the false debate which suggests that a nation must choose between national development and combating climate change. Instead we should be asking how we can forge prosperous low carbon economies where national development and combating climate change are complementary, not competing, objectives.
Ron Cheong is a Banker with International and Canadian experience. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Canadian Bankers and the chair of Resource Mobilization of the not for profit Global Partnership for Literacy. He wrote this article for Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia.
