Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Persaud says that Guyana’s low rate of deforestation is testimony to the effective forest policy and legislative and governance framework in place in Guyana.
Oslo recently announced that it would pay Guyana US$35M under the forest protection agreement between the two countries, after a marginal increase in deforestation and forest degradation in 2012. This follows three previous payments that have been made for performance under the agreement for the years 2009, when US$30M was earned; 2010, which saw US$40M being recorded; and 2011, which recorded a payment of US$45M. In all, Guyana has earned US$150M thus far.
Assessment of performance for the reporting year 2013 is currently being finalised and according to Persaud, will likely see maintained levels of payment for forest carbon services coming to Guyana. Performance under the Guyana-Norway agreement, is measured largely on the maintenance of forest and an accompanying low rate of deforestation. These, Persaud said in a statement, are contingent on strong and effective forest governance, sustainable forest management, and high levels of forest legality and chain of custody management.
Persaud said that over the past six years, maintenance of forest for timber harvesting and management of forest for mineral extraction have all been taking place over the area of State Forest of 12,274,000 hectares. With management of this vast expanse with extraction and utilisation for timber, and mineral ongoing, there has been a maintained low rate of deforestation of 0.02% to 0.08% over the past 23 years, he said. “This achievement cannot be made in isolation of strong legislation, policy and guidelines for the natural resources sector. More precisely, this maintained low rate of deforestation is testimony to the effective forest policy, legislative and governance framework in place in Guyana. This is by no means an accident, or coincidence, but rather a product of deliberate and strategic interventions over the past six years which have been geared towards creating a workable and adaptable framework within which the goals of achieving strong forest governance and environmental stewardship are accomplished, and still allow for utilisation in the forestry and mining sectors,” he said.
Persaud stated that one of the main focal areas of the work of the Guyana Forestry Commission’s (GFC) has been forest law enforcement and legality. “This has been due not only to the legal requirements as set out in the Forest Act, but also to a recognition of the importance of legality in ensuring that the benefits from forest resources utilisation flow to the right beneficiaries, preventing unfair competition between illegal and legal produce, maintaining a low rate of deforestation and forest degradation, ensuring sustainable development of forest dependent communities, and mitigating against climate change in a REDD+ framework,” he said.
The minister also noted that at the bilateral level, Guyana is currently engaged in negotiations with the European Union (EU) on a Voluntary Partnership Agree-ment under the EU’s Forest Law Enforce-ment Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Programme. This engagement has seen the further opening up of Guyana’s forest management system to international scrutiny and the further strengthening of forest governance and legality in the forest sector, he said.
“As a precursor to EU FLEGT, the forest sector has already, over the past three years, concluded three audits under the Independent Forest Monitoring programme. The results of these audits have concluded over 90% compliance of all indicators and this is further support by very minimal illegal logging rates of 0.5% for the past three years,” he said, while noting that these results have been subject to a second layer of independent scrutiny, as part of the independent verification conducted under the Guyana-Norway agreement, which has confirmed the findings for every year.
Improved forestry monitoring and regulation
Persaud highlighted the policies that guide the forestry sector and said that these help to ensure that sustainable forest management is effectively implemented at the concession and management unit levels. He said that Guyana has also developed a Legality Assurance System that will be the basis of engaging with relevant partners as the GFC advances its efforts in exploring the possibility of being part of international systems of legality and verification.
“Guyana has maintained a strong and continuously improving system of forest monitoring and regulation in the forest sector, resulting in maintained low rates of illegality, an environment where there is an inherent deterrent to illegal activities, systems of reporting and monitoring that lend to the fulfillment of most, if not all elements, of an effective chain of custody management system of forest product from the point of harvest to export, and a system that allows for verification of legal origin of forest produce,” the minister asserted. He added that Guyana is one of the few countries in the world with a national level log tracking system in place and fully operational for over a decade. Overall, these mechanisms have been enabled over the years by the strengthening of the institutional framework, whilst also supporting the sector, Persaud stated.
He noted that a low rate of deforestation is also seen at a time when gold income has been at peak levels, and even with an increase in investment in the mining sector. “Maintaining 99% of forest cover still remains an achievable goal and a reality in the natural resources sector,” he declared.
Further, he said, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) has also advanced work in developing and implementing Codes of Practice on Mining which relates to avoiding environmental degradation while to complement these efforts, there has also been development on the operational end. The improvement of technology and mining practices are very important to shift miners away from the use of mercury and to improve the recovery efficiency in mining operations, he said.
According to the minister, the impacts of these efforts are already being seen with a lower deforestation rate reported for 2013. Interim results indicate a decrease in the rate of deforestation from 0.079% for 2012 to 0.068% as the reported rate for 2013. Total deforestation is 12,702 hectares for 2013. “The main reason for this decrease in deforestation rate is on account of a decrease in deforestation from mining activities which dropped to 11,487 hectares from the 2012 total of 13,664 hectares, a decline of 2,177 hectares. Forest sector deforestation continues to be at a very low level of 330 hectares and justifies the assertions that forest harvest has had, and continues to have a very low impact on deforestation,” Persaud said.
He said that the rate of deforestation for Guyana over the past 23 years has remained fairly stable between the range of 0.02% and 0.08%, and stands to compare quite favourably with the global average deforestation rate which is recorded at 0.52%.
