The Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development manages the nearly one million acre (371,000 hectares) Iwokrama Forest in central Guyana to show how tropical forests can be conserved and sustainably used to provide ecological, social and economic benefits to local, national and international communities. For many reasons, it is a perfect site to experiment with payment for ecosystem services within the framework of the Guiana Shield Initiative.
The 371,000 hectare Iwokrama Forest and the adjacent North Rupununi Wetlands encompass an ecosystem with a wide range of habitats, including over 200 lakes, braided rivers flowing over volcanic dykes, 1000-metre-high mountains, lowland tropical rain forests, palm forests, and seasonally flooded forests and savannahs. The area has an extraordinary biodiversity, including over 475 species of birds, and the highest number of species of fish (over 400) and bats (over 90) recorded in any area of a comparable size in the world.
The area is also the homeland of the Makushi people who continue to live in the area and use the forest and wetland resources. The Iwokrama International Centre involves the local population in all aspects of its work. These integrating activities are the core activities of the organisation. In turn, these core activities support the businesses of Iwokrama. Integrating human needs and values into business development and conservation strategies, establishes partnerships with local communities. This way, they can assist in forest management and obtain direct benefits through joint business development.
In a context of ecosystem conservation, IIC seeks to develop global models for sustainable, profit-making, rainforest enterprises, integrating the private sector with local communities within a sound, regulatory environment. The Iwokrama Business Plan 2005-2010, describes four areas for business investment: Sustainable Timber Harvesting, Ecotourism, Training, and Intellectual Property and Services.
Together, these areas cover a broad spectrum of forest-based businesses ranging from the sustainable extraction of timber to the sale of services, such as consultancy and research, based on the Centre’s experiences and environmental services associated with carbon sequestration, watershed management and other non-timber forest products.
The selection of Iwokrama as one of the pilot sites for GSI will certainly be useful during the next stages of sustainable commercial development of multiple forest resources.
On Thursday the 14th of August, the first "Micro-Capital Grant Agreement" between the UNDP and the Iwokrama International Centre (IIC) has been signed, witnessed by staff of the GSI-PMU as well as the leaders of the NRDDB; the local communities organization. As such, this is the first PES contract signed with a GSI pilot site within this phase of the GSI Phase II project "Ecologically and Financially Sustainable Management of the Guiana Shield Eco-Region", mainly sponsored by the European Union. It is thanks to the combined efforts of GSI staff and related organizations in Georgetown, Oxford, Amsterdam, Wageningen and The Hague that this all came about.
The formal agreement between UNDP and the IIC for payment for ecosystem services (PES), worth up to USD200,000, is complemented by a Management Plan, which details the necessary requirements for the management of the Iwokrama Programme site within the framework of the GSI project. The plan also provides operational details for sustainable resource use. IIC’s mandate as a sustainable resource utilization entity will be supported by state of the art remote sensing monitoring and “ground truthing”. Each resource use activity will be defined and monitored to ensure consistency within its defined user limits. Limits to resource exploitation will include harvest limits, seasonal restrictions, and road travel/use restrictions among many others.
The Prince’s Rainforests Project was set up in October 2007 by The Prince of Wales to find practical solutions to slow tropical deforestation and combat climate change.
The destruction and degradation of the tropical rainforests is the third biggest contributor to carbon emissions worldwide after power generation.
It is estimated that as much as 12 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions result from deforestation, and both the Stern review and the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change report believe tackling deforestation may be one of the quickest and most cost effective means of reducing emissions in the short term.
The Prince’s Rainforests Project aims to help the world community recognise the true value of forests by identifying ways to value, and then pay for, the crucial “ecosystem services” rainforests provide. As His Royal Highness said in a speech on January 14th to the European Parliament in Brussels: “In the simplest terms, we have to make the rainforests worth more alive than dead.”
-President Jagdeo tells CI’s global awareness campaign
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo has once again put forward Guyana’s resolve to participate in the committed global fight against Climate Change.
The Guyanese Head of State, speaking at a Conservation International (CI) press conference in New York yesterday, said Guyana is ready to be a model for the world in devising international partnerships in this fight against climate change.
(Picture: CI’s Global Awareness Campaign: From left, Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer of Conservation International Peter Zeligmann,
President Bharrat Jagdeo and CI’s President Mr. Russell Mittermeier
during yesterday’s event in New York.)
President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday renewed Guyana’s offer of its rainforests in the battle against climate change and at a Conservation Inter-national global awareness campaign in New York said rainforest countries need new development paths that do not rely on unsustainable forest exploitation.
Expressing delight in supporting the “Lost There, Felt Here” Campaign, he said there is also need to recognize the vicious circle of destruction that links climate change and deforestation. “While climate change policies might result in Europeans and North Americans having to pay more for an SUV, in poor countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, climate change is literally a matter of life or death, the difference between able to eat or starving, or the cause of destruction of the livelihoods of entire communities,” Jagdeo said.
Ethical Corporation, 14 May 2008 - Forests are currently worth more chopped down than standing. A novel experiment in Guyana seeks to put a value on the services provided by forests to keep the chainsaws at bay.
Internet search engine Google, essentially an intangible product, is valued at billions of dollars. The world's pristine rainforests are tangible, finite products and yet have no value at all.
This apparent anomaly is the driving conceptual force behind a new initiative to monetise tropical forests. A UK-based company, Canopy Capital, is proposing to create a “utility value” for a forest in Guyana through commercialising its “ecosystem services”.
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