Latest update March 29th, 2025 5:38 AM
Mangrove Action Plan completed
Jagdeo Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Forests (left) and Dr Oudho Homenauth of the National Agriculture Research Institute sign an agreement for co-operation in protecting mangroves while officials look on.
– No clear date for release of EU funds
The Mangrove Action Committee yesterday presented a key management plan for mangrove forests to the Minister of Agriculture as the country looks to secure funding from the European Union.
The total area of mangrove forest in Guyana is estimated at 80,432 hectares. The Management plan seeks to protect the mangrove forest from destruction and also to regenerate the forest in areas where it has been destroyed.
Accepting the plan from Annette Arjoon, chairperson of the Mangrove Action Committee, Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud recognized mangroves as necessary in securing coastal communities and the country’s agriculture sector.
Persaud said the plan also promotes the sustainable use of the mangrove forests, since instead of cutting it down the mangroves could be used successfully in fishing and apiculture.
According to the Sea Defence Act, anyone caught cutting mangroves can be fined $12, 000 and be imprisoned for twelve months. The protection and restoration of the mangrove forest has become a key focus of the sea defence sector given global climate change.
Guyana with its low-lying coastal plain and a crumbling and under-resourced sea and river defence system is at exceptional risk with sea level rise being one of the more certain outcomes of global warming.
Mangroves protect the coast through stabilisation of the shoreline by controlling erosion from waves. Mangroves are also the first line of defence against wave actions and storms, helping to protect the sea wall or embankment and reduce damage of sea defence systems.
The European Union is putting 4.165 million Euros into the project, but yesterday Manuela Pintiero, Charge d’Affaires of the European Commission in Georgetown, could not say when the first tranche of the money will be handed down to Guyana.
She said the EU was satisfied with the plan and with the public response to the efforts to protect the mangrove forest.
But while the government awaits that money, Persaud said the government had allocated $30 million in the 2010 national budget for the project.
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