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Jagdeo, Harrison Ford call on UN to support forest conservation

Sep 22, 2009 News

President Bharrat Jagdeo was joined yesterday by movie star Harrison Ford in a call to the United Nations to protect the world’s tropical forests as the quickest and most cost effective way to tackle climate change.

Jagdeo and Ford spoke in front of a stunning installation of life-size origami trees and wildlife to call on world leaders attending the UN General Assembly to provide developing nations with funding to allow them to keep the planet’s tropical forests standing.

According to Conservation International, protecting forests represents one of the easiest and most cost effective ways to fight climate change now, whereas many other strategies may take years to develop.

“If we wait, these forests will be lost along with the multiple benefits they provide to humanity in terms of climate mitigation, fresh water, erosion control, food and resources,” the conservation body stated.

The President’s address was the focus of a major media event organised by Conservation International and Team Earth in Greeley Square, New York City, a day before the opening of the UN General Assembly.

The life-size origami trees and wildlife, symbolising Guyana’s massive and immensely important forest, was created on site over two days, and then partially destroyed as a statement about loss of the planet’s forests.

More than 80 per cent of Guyana (13m hectares – an area approximately the size of England) is still covered with intact tropical rainforest.

“In the year since I last came to New York to call for forest conservation, the world has lost an area of forest the size of my entire country. This has not only released more CO2 into the atmosphere than every motorised vehicle on the planet – around 20 per cent of global emissions – but has also reduced the earth’s ability to remove CO2 from the atmosphere,” Jagdeo stated.

“This has not happened out of malice or ignorance, but because most of the world’s forested nations have no alternative but to generate income by cutting their forests.

“Guyana has offered a solution with our plan for low carbon development, and the leaders who will meet at UN this week have an unprecedented opportunity to put the planet on a new path, where protecting forests is more economically prudent than cutting them down,” he added.

The president’s address followed the launch of Team Earth, a cross-sector collaboration bringing together businesses, politicians, scientists, non-profit organisations, educators, individuals and children. The Team Earth event featured CEOs including Howard Schultz from Starbucks and Fisk Johnson from SC Johnson and Co. making commitments to forest conservation.

Harrison Ford, who has been a board member of Conservation International for 15 years, said: “By having the foresight to recognise that serving the needs of the planet could also help the people of Guyana, President Jagdeo is helping to change the way that we think about economic development and climate change.

“We are calling on leaders attending the UN General Assembly to follow Guyana’s lead and help to ensure that they support a finance package that keeps the world’s forest standing at the Copenhagen climate talks in December.”

However, the high profile event was dogged by a group of US-based Guyanese protesting various issues in Guyana.

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