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.