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Mining responsible for 87 per cent of deforestation in 2014
…but Guyana on track to receive more Norway money
Mining in recent years has served as a major boon to the Guyana economy but it is also being recognized as one of the country’s main contributors to its deforestation rate.
An example of a local mining operation.
This is according to the Guyana REDD+ Monitoring Reporting & Verification System (MRVS)
Year Five Report, which pegs mining as being responsible for 87 per cent of the nation’s deforestation last year.
The report was prepared as a result of the Memorandum of Understanding (M0U) signed between the Guyana Government and the Kingdom of Norway, to keep its forest standing in exchange for some US$250M.
The country’s overall performance has been creditable and as such it is on track to secure another tranche of the monies agreed to under the Low Carbon Development Strategy and the Guyana Agreement with the Kingdom of Norway.
According to the Report, the area of forest degraded in 2014 was just about 4,231 hectares which is a slight decrease from 4,352 hectares (ha) as reported in the previous year.
“It was pointed out that the fluctuation in areas mapped as degraded does not track with the associated deforested area…It is thought this is due to significant areas near mining sites being degraded in initial activities and then deforested once the site is fully operational.”
On the 87 per cent deforestation rate in all degradation mapped it was found that “this is expected as mining also accounts for the largest area of deforestation.”
The Report found, too, that the established trend is that forest degradation impacts are largely detected around mining areas.
The remaining contributors to degradation are from fire (6%) and newly established (pioneer) shifting agriculture areas (4%).
Infrastructure and forestry related activities such as degradation during road formation contribute approximately one per cent each to total year 5 degradation.
According to the 2014 Report, during the mapping process, areas of historical degradation are revisited and the review checks for any changes in the forest cover and for any expansion.
The monitoring process identified that more than 300 hectares had been deforested during the Year 5 reporting period.
The changes recorded, all occur around existing mining areas, according to the Report. It was pointed out that initial evidence suggests that forest areas are degraded during the initial activities.
“If the areas are fully operationalised then it is probable that these areas recover…Alternatively, if mining proceeds, the areas are converted to deforestation.”
The results of the year-five report will be further vetted by an independent third party before any monies can be paid over for use by the Guyana government from Norway.
The MRVs reports on forest change, both deforestation and degradation, by change driver through the interpretation of a national coverage of high resolution imagery.
The same dataset has also been used to improve the historical (1990) delineation of forest and non-forest areas.
The total forested area used in the year-five assessment is 18.48 million hectares (ha).
Guyana currently records a comparatively low deforestation rate, reported in its Interim Measures MRVS Report, as ranging between 0.02 per cent and 0.079 per cent per annum.
Deforestation rates typically expand along with economic development, thus prompting the formation of the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD programme), the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and the REDD+ Partnership, among others.
Guyana has already received four tranches of money totaling almost US$200M under the forest protection agreement with the Kingdom of Norway Guyana.
Norway has committed to providing Guyana with up to US$250M by 2015, depending on Guyana’s delivery of results from avoided deforestation.
On November 9, 2009, Guyana and Norway entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to foster cooperation on issues related to the fight against climate change.
Since then, the monies released have been utilized to support the implementation of several projects under the LCDS, including the Micro and Small Enterprise Project, Amerindian Development Fund and the strengthening of key institutions.
The Amaila Falls Hydro project was also slated to be one of the beneficiary projects with some US$80M earmarked but Government has already indicated that it will discontinue pursuing that proposed 165MW project.
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