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Norway deal reduced deforestation 30 percent between 2010-2015 -Researcher
Dr. Roopsind measuring below ground carbon in tree roots in the Iwokrama Forest to study how forests will be impacted by climate change.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is a climate change mitigation policy in which rich countries provide payments to developing countries for protecting their forests.
In 2009, Norway and Guyana entered into one of the first bilateral REDD+ projects, with Norway offering to pay US$250M to Guyana if annual deforestation rates remained low – the target between 2010 to 2015 was 0.056%.
The agreement was historical in scope as it was the first national scale payments for performance REDD+ project in the world.
Guyana was also a critical test case of whether REDD+ would work in a country that has historically high forest cover and low deforestation rates.
Dr. Anand Roopsind, a Guyanese post-doctoral researcher at Boise State University in the US, on Friday presented preliminary findings from an ongoing study to quantity the effect of the Guyana-Norway Agreement (GNA).
Present at the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) conference centre were several board of directors, staffers and stakeholders of the sector.
Roopsind worked at GFC and Iwokrama.
A few of the stakeholders on Friday during the presentation of Dr. Roopsind at GFC’s headquarters, Kingston.
GFC itself has been struggling with limited resources to ensure that strict compliance is adhered to under the arrangements with Norway.
Roopsind’s work focused on sustainable forest management in Guyana and Suriname, with a special interest in assessing the impact of forestry practices and policies on forest goods and services, especially timber, carbon and biodiversity.
Dr. Roopsind and his research collaborators were able to quantify the impact of the GNA using a statistical approach that allowed them to predict what deforestation would have occurred if Guyana did not implement the GNA.
The researchers could then compare the observed deforestation in Guyana under the GNA and what would have happened without it to measure its effect.
Their preliminary analysis found that the GNA REDD+ project reduced deforestation in Guyana by over 30% during the project period (2010-2015), equivalent to approximately 12.8 million tons of avoided CO2 emissions.
Dr. Roopsind said that in terms of what REDD+ was intended to achieve (protecting Guyana’s forests), the analysis indicates that the Guyana-Norway agreement was effective.
“Our preliminary results indicate that the project met the additionality criteria of REDD+ as a result of the climate mitigation payments and improved forest governance.”
The researcher indicated, however, that international leakage due to global commodity trade likely reduced the net effect of the GNA, and without continued REDD+ payments, forest protection may not be achieved.
“The complexity of leakage, in particular, suggests that REDD+ should be implemented at the regional scale across the Guiana Shield forest biome, and that conditional forest protection payments must be sustained and not be one-off.”
Dr. Roopsind emphasized that initiatives to protect tropical forests like REDD+ are critical because tropical forest loss has been increasing globally, “even as we’ve become more aware of the critical role of forest conservation in combating climate change.
“The largest loss of tropical forests in recorded history took place in 2016 and 2017. Our preliminary results indicate REDD+ initiatives can work to protect forests as a climate mitigation strategy.”
Dr. Roopsind is also collaborating closely with the University of Guyana to understand the impact of climate on Guyana’s forests and training students, faculty and young professionals working in natural resource agencies the skills needed for sustainable natural resource management in Guyana.
The project is being supported through collaborations with Boise State University, University of Florida, Oxford University, Iwokrama International Centre, and WWF-Guianas.
To date more than 150 persons have been trained in various technical skills ranging from statistical analysis, to using satellite imagery for land-use planning.
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