-British High Commission
Guyana is said to be better positioned to meet its obligations under the International Convention on Biodiversity after four years of wetlands assistance from the UK and institutions, the British High Commission said yesterday in a press release.
And among the results coming out of the North Rupununi Wetlands Project (NRWP) are teacher and student resources for primary schools, community and environmental officer courses, a postgraduate course on wetlands management for the University of Guyana, the 2008 edition of the North Rupununi Adaptive Management Process (NRAMP), maps, and the North Rupununi Community website.
In 2003, the Darwin Initiative approved funding for the NRWP, allowing the UK’s leading institutions for biodiversity conservation and education to work in partnership with Iwokrama, the North Rupununi District Development Board, UG, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Ministry of Education.
The UK institutions involved were the Royal Holloway University of London, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the Open University.
The aims of the project, the release stated, were delivered in two phases. The first phase involved assessing the health of wetland habitats and communities in the North Rupununi and developing a process for the sustainable management of natural resources, with the key output being the North Rupununi Adaptive Management Process or NRAMP.
Meanwhile, the second phase sought to build capacity of Guyanese stakeholders at both local and national levels in implementing the NRAMP by significantly expanding the number of trained individuals in bio-diversity; developing material for Guyanese university courses and schools to help raise awareness of, and build capacity for, biodiversity conservation. It also focused on developing local, financially sustainable livelihood schemes, such as eco-tourism, that are linked to the bio-diversity monitoring and conservation of key wetland habitats important to the local communities.
According to the release, British High Commissioner to Guyana Fraser Wheeler, speaking at the ceremony on Wednesday to mark the culmination of the project, said a milestone in the productive partnership between the UK and Guyana in making good the promises made to the Convention on Biological Diversity had been achieved.
He said that the principal mechanism through which the UK supports other countries in their obligations to the Convention on Biological Diversity is through the Darwin Initiative.
Its key objective is for the UK to work with local partners in countries rich in bio-diversity but poor in resources to achieve the conservation of biological diversity; the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits.
At March 31, 2007, 458 projects had been supported, totalling an investment of around 60 million pounds with six of these in Guyana, the release added.
