Britain’s King Charles III will continue to serve as Patron of the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development (IIC) for another term in supporting its work to advance sustainable rainforest management and climate change resilience.
This announcement is part of a series of events to celebrate the first anniversary of the King’s coronation, IIC said in a release yesterday.
As Prince of Wales, the King, first became IIC’s Patron in 2000 after visiting Guyana and the Iwokrama Forest and has been a strong supporter of Iwokrama’s work to develop modern rainforest conservation models and practices, IIC said.
“Whilst the Centre generates some revenue, it continues to receive support from donors and corporate support programmes and in recent years has benefitted significantly from the Government of Guyana”, the IIC said.
It added that Guyana’s President, Irfaan Ali has charted Guyana’s innovative green development agenda through the Low Carbon Development Strategy 2030 (LCDS 2030) of which Iwokrama is an integral part guiding the research and science of biodiversity. In tandem with Guyana’s rapidly developing oil and gas sector, the release said that the LCDS 2030 ensures that conservation remains a top national priority and the Centre’s programmatic activity is pivotal in supporting these goals.
Iwokrama’s models of sustainable forest management contribute to rainforest conservation by delivering not only climate protection and environmental balance, but also real examples for socioeconomic development, the IIC said.
The setting aside of Iwokrama’s forests for sustainable development and research was announced in 1989 by then President Desmond Hoyte at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
IIC said that Iwokrama brings together 20 local communities (approximately 7,000 people) who are shareholders and participants in the IIC’s sustainable timber, tourism, research operations and forest management activities through complex co-management and benefit sharing arrangements.
