Guyana recorded its lowest deforestation rate to date in 2017, the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) announced on Friday.
According to a Department of Public Infrastructure (DPI) report, the announcement was made during a press conference hosted at the Commission’s Water Street, Kingston office.
Head of Planning and Development at the GFC Pradeepa Bholanath was reported as saying that the new rate augurs well for the Guyana’s forest agreement with Norway.
“The deforestation rate at the start of the agreement, which was in the year 2010, reflected at a rate of 0.056 per cent … to the rate we are now reflecting for 2017, which is 0.048, a significant decrease from the start rate of the partnership,” she noted.
This translates to a total area of deforestation of 8, 851 hectares. Bholanath said this compares to some 13,000 hectares, which was recorded in the peak year, 2012.
According to the report, Bholanath said the new deforestation rate is good news for Guyana since it indicates that across all main drivers, which include infrastructure, mining, agriculture and forest fires, “we have seen a decrease in every single one of these drivers, particularly for the largest driver, which is mining deforestation.”
She said this is also reflective of the effectiveness of policy implementation in both the mining and forest sectors.
The GFC completed mapping of the forest change for 2017 from deforestation drivers, the report eexplained, while noting that the assessment is part of the national programmes of Monitoring, Reporting and Verification that Guyana started in 2010 with support from the Norwegian government.
It also forms part of the partnership on climate and forests between the two countries.
In 2010, the deforestation rate stood at 0.056; in 2011, at 0.054; in 2012, 0.079; in 2013, 0.068; in 2014, 0.065; and in 2015/2016, 0.050.