The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) has hailed the performance of the forestry commission in meeting the benchmarks for disbursal of the final tranche of payments from Norway under a bilateral deal and it also lauded the retiring Commissioner, James Singh.
In a statement yesterday, MNR said it was pleased to note the announcement of the final release of remaining payments under the Guyana Norway Agreement to a total of $9.1B.
While the money has been paid over, Norway has made it clear that it won’t be accessed until after the general elections on March 2nd, 2020.
“I also believe it was made clear by our minister during the climate summit in New York City that payments will be sanctioned out of the GRIF [Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund] until after the elections have been held and a government with a mandate from that election is in place,” former Director of the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative Per Fredrik Pharo told the Sunday Stabroek recently.
“In other words, the money will not be spent until the current situation is resolved,” Pharo added.
MNR yesterday noted that the basis of the pact with Norway rested on keeping Guyana’s forest cover maintained at a high level, and concurrently, deforestation rates are at a low level and that this work has been undertaken by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) since the inception of the agreement in 2010.
Performance Results – Maintaining Forest Cover
MNR said that the basis of the agreement has been fulfilled in large part, due to the work of the GFC.
“The GFC, through its systems of monitoring and reporting which have been independently accuracy-assessed for each year has confirmed the deforestation rates in Guyana”, MNR said.
Whilst reporting on the forest area and deforestation rates has been a key focus for the GFC, MNR said that the Commission has also furthered work in the area of governance, particularly EU Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (EU FLEGT) and Independent Forest Monitoring (IFM).
This period has also seen an expansion of the GFC’s Community Forestry Programme which has resulted in over 500,000 hectares being issued to Community Forestry Associations which directly employ close to 3,000 persons.
“The MNR recognizes the excellent work done by Commissioner James Singh and the staff of the Guyana Forestry Commission.
“As Commissioner Singh’s long years of service ends and as he proceeds on medical leave at the start of 2020, the MNR takes this opportunity to thank him for his service and wishes him the best health wise and in his future endeavours”, MNR said.
Forest Area Allocation and Production Volume of Timber
Over the period of the deal, MNR said that the GFC, led by the GFC Board has undertaken a comprehensive effort to re-evaluate concessions which had been assigned whilst providing support to ensure that concessionaires are fulfilling their contractual obligations. During this period some 2m hectares of forest area were reassigned to unallocated state forest including that of the Barama Company Ltd which voluntarily relinquished its Concessions. MNR said that the lower production volume can be linked with these actions though these actions are not relevant to the deforestation rate per se.
Touching on the GFC’s financial situation, MNR said that over the past nine years, several aspects of the reporting commitments under the Guyana Norway agreement have seen close to 30% of GFC staff time and budget allocated to these areas. The GFC, the release said, therefore looks forward to a new round of the Norway Guyana agreement that will directly resource the commission for its role.
The statement added that the reduction in production and accompanying log exports have negatively affected the financial situation of the GFC and this has resulted recently in delayed payments to staff especially given the lack of a reserve.
MNR said it looks forward to continued strong collaboration with Norway in the future.
Under the 2009 deal, Norway agreed to pay up to US$250 million over five years for Guyana’s performance on limiting greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and for progress made against governance-related indicators.
Under the deal, Guyana lost US$22.7 million as a result of increased deforestation in 2012 as well as for its sloth in moving to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
