Guyana is positioned to benefit from the recent renewal of a Memorandum of Understanding between the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) under which the two bodies will continue to work together to engage multilateral funding sources including the Global Environment Fund to help ensure biodiversity conservation and livelihood improvement in sustainably managed tropical forests through landscape restoration and expansion of natural protected areas. Critically, the renewal of the Agreement will also allow for opportunities to be explored to enable harmonized reporting on sustainable use, restoration, and conservation of tropical forests in the context of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
ITTO and CBD have been collaborating closely for a decade, the first MOU between the two entities having been signed in 2010. A second MoU spanning 2015–2020 was signed at the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea, in October 2014.
The collaborative agreement has, up until now, encompassed sixteen (16) projects in 23 tropical countries, all of which had experienced biodiversity losses and declines in forest area and have large numbers of forest dependent people. A recent technical review found that these projects have achieved “extraordinary success” in improving local livelihoods and forest management, restoring degraded forest landscapes and conserving biodiversity.
The renewed collaboration between the CBD and ITTO will see the two agencies jointly assisting countries to recognize and enhance the values of forest landscapes, including their biodiversity and ecosystem services and assisting countries to collect and use ecological and biological data that contribute to sustainable management and use and the restoration of tropical forests. The renewed collaborative initiative will also support countries in the promotion of innovative practices, technologies and approaches, and the development of technical expertise, to enhance tropical biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services in forest landscapes. Moreover, beneficiary countries will also be better positioned to build capacity for implementing ITTO Guidelines for the Conservation and Sustainable use of Biodiversity in Tropical Timber Production Forests. Affected countries will also be better positioned to identify, develop and implement targeted joint activities on tropical forests and tropical forest biodiversity.
The new MoU will also help facilitate collaboration with, and access to, bilateral and multilateral funding sources including the Global Environment Facility and the Green Climate Fund on issues related to biodiversity conservation, climate-change mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable development.
