Gov’t admits deforestation could hurt Norway funding

Nov 02, 2013 News

…Guyana stands to lose US$25 million

By Neil Marks

The government yesterday admitted that it could lose an estimated US$20 million from its forest-saving deal with Norway.
This follows a new report, which shows increased levels of deforestation in 2012.
Under the five-year forest-saving deal with Norway, Guyana needed to monitor the amount of the forest cut down, and to keep it at a level agreed to by the two countries. Once Guyana kept its end of the deal, it would bank US$250 million, but now a chunk of that could be lost.
The reason is that under the agreement with Norway, the number of trees being chopped down, or what is called deforestation, was set at 0.07 per cent, but a monitoring and evaluation exercise found that last year, the level of deforestation was 0.079 per cent, more than allowed under the agreement between Guyana and Norway.
If the percentage is converted into actual forest loss, it means that more than 36,000 acres of forests were cut down in 2012 that was about 9,000 acres more than that cut down the year before.
The Minister with responsibility for forestry, Robert Persaud, was not ready to be forthright in saying that because of the increase in deforestation Guyana could lose the Norwegian funds, but he did anyhow.
“If what we have is accurate…somewhere in the range of about US$20M or thereabouts (could be lost),” Persaud said at a press conference yesterday. The actual figure Guyana stands to lose is about US$25 million.
The Minister said that a University contracted by the Guyana Forestry Commission, plus an independent team from Norway has to verify the report on the increased level of deforestation has to be confirmed before it could be said with certainty that the Norwegian funds could be lost.
Jagdesh Singh, Deputy Commissioner of the Guyana Forestry Commission, said that those two verification processes could be completed by the end of this month.
The use of new technology, namely satellite imaging, helped to detect the increased levels of deforestation, the Minister said. However, he would not agree that the absence of such accurate technology at the time of the signing of the agreement could mean that the two parties did not have a clear picture of the state of the country’s forests.
The Minister said that 36, 000 acres of forest cut down in 2012 is nothing to be alarmed about since the country’s total forest cover, taking into account including Amerindian lands and protected areas, amounts to over 45 million acres.
The new deforestation figures are contained in Guyana’s third national report on deforestation rates under the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system – a mechanism under REDD+, the UN programme for saving the world’s rainforest.
One of the main factors driving deforestation in Guyana is mining, and the Minister emphasised that the government is interested in robust legislation and the enforcement of related guidelines to manage the sector.
But Persaud said that the mining activities clearing the forest is not “lawless” mining, since these operations where there is forest clearing are sanctioned by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, GGMC.
The Minister said that the issue with the mining sector is therefore not a question of scaling up or scaling down operations, but of ensuring sustainable operations.
Persaud emphasised that while there has been an increase in deforestation here – less than 0.1 per cent – it is among the lowest in the world.

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