Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 15, 2010 Editorial
It appears that as the President had predicted, the first US$30 million installment will be disbursed imminently from the US$250 promised by Norway for the conservation of our forests. This should be of some satisfaction to the President because he has expended much political capital (not to mention, time) to bring the negotiations to fruition. It should also be of great satisfaction to all Guyanese since to be blunt about it, we are getting money for pretty much doing nothing.
The Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) programme is part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), which is directed to deal with the adverse impact wrought by climate change and global warming. After strenuous lobbying by countries that had large tracts of standing forests, such as Guyana, which pointed out that they had no incentive not to cut down their forests, the REDD+ program was extended to reward them for “avoided deforestation”. The argument was that by leaving the trees standing, they would sequester carbon in their mass rather than releasing them and their harmful effects into the atmosphere if they were cut.
When President Jagdeo conceptualised the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) as the vehicle for executing an “avoided deforestation” program, sceptics were adamant that he would not be able to persuade anyone to come up with the money. After all, Guyana was not exactly setting the world ablaze (pun intended) with its deforestation; unlike such stalwarts such as Indonesia. The fact of the matter is that our baseline deforestation is very, very low. Statistics produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation for Guyana indicates: “no net loss of forest cover between 1990 and 2005.”
It was ironic that on the same day that the President was delivering his “avoided deforestation” speech in New York in 2009, back home in Guyana, the Forest Products Association (FPA) announced that while they were committed to “Sustainable Forest Management” (SFM), in view of the “present global financial crisis where companies are failing or on the verge of doing so”, they were seeking strong partnership and support from the government and other stakeholders. Specifically, they are seeking the government’s review of the Guyana Forestry Commission’s “practices in managing and regulating the forestry sector”. There wasn’t going to be any heightened deforestation soon.
Strangely enough, the President was criticised by some for pulling the wool over the international bodies’ eyes: as if those August bodies are not masters at performing that very same task. Why should Guyana not milk the system for once – we certainly have been milked enough over the past three centuries. The critics then complained paradoxically at the same time that controls demanded by the foreigners over our forests would place our miners and loggers on the streets. In fact some of the former did come into the streets, but it was soon apparent that the controls were ones that we should have imposed in any case.
When it became apparent that money would be forthcoming a new tact was adopted by the critics. They claimed that the money would be squandered and controls had to be imposed to prevent this eventuality. And so we arrived at GRIF – Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund – which has the World Bank in effect overseeing that Guyana holds up its end of the agreement it signed with Norway. The moneys from Norway would be utilised within the LCDS such as the development of hinterland communities, hydro-electric power generation etc.
But there are some other benefits that will redound to our benefit in the long run. Most importantly because the government will have to submit annual reports on the memorandum signed with Norway, a tremendous amount of information which is not usually available to the general public will be available for scrutiny. This added transparency should improve governance in this key economic sector.
In the same vein since the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) will be in charge of the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) System. We expect that they are training our own citizens in these skills.
Jagdeo giving Exxon 102 cent to collect 2 cent.
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