Guyana moving to assess forest carbon stocks for sale of credits

Conservation International Guyana (CI Guyana)  will  provide the Guyana Forestry Commission with $8M to support the establishment of a special secretariat which will  be involved in  figuring out just how much carbon Guyana has in its forests and how to calculate it.

The establishment of the quantity of carbon  will serve as a monitoring tool and it is expected to become of even greater value as Guyana pursues the sale of forest carbon credits, CI Guyana stated in a press release yesterday.

The Reduced Emissions from Deforestation  and Forest Degradation (REDD) secretariat is part of Guyana’s pursuit of an avoided deforestation strategy under the REDD initiative  and will serve to coordinate the country’s efforts and facilitate national readiness, the release said.

It stated further that one of the main components of the grant agreement is the establishment of scientific methods that can be used to assess Guyana’s  forest carbon stocks  at a national level.

And once these methods have been developed Guyana will be able to calculate what  exactly it has in terms of forest carbon stocks and then to  monitor its use.

The secretariat will be housed in the GFC and will be part of the larger support for government’s policy and strategy initiatives to establish the country’s role as a leader in climate change efforts for areas with high forest cover and low rates of deforestation.

Guyana is promoting a low carbon economy and is campaigning for the rest of the world to recognize the need to pay for standing forests as a mitigation measure against climate change.

Globally, the release noted, many hope that REDD, a mechanism for compensating  countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation will generate funds for tropical countries.
Guyana is  one of some 11 countries that are characterized by high forest cover and low deforestation rates.

These countries own 13 percent of the world’s forests but there are little incentives to maintain these forests which  provide valuable ecosystem services to the world, CI Guyana added.