Guyana has capacity to teach other countries about forest monitoring – Norway report

Feb 28, 2020 News

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A mid-term report by Norway has lauded Guyana on its increased capacity to monitor its forests.
The report by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), has been prepared by LTS International Limited (part of the NIRAS Group) under contract.
In 2009, the Governments of Guyana and Norway agreed to cooperate on broader emission reduction goals.
Guyana has received over US$200M out of the US$250M committed by Norway under the ground-breaking deal.
The activity resulted in the development of a Measurement Reporting Verification (MRV) system for a comprehensive, consistent, transparent and verifiable assessment of forest area change.
Currently, around 80 percent of Guyana is covered by forests.
According to the report released by GFC yesterday, since the inception it has made steady incremental gains through the inclusion of new sources of satellite data and refinement of mapping and reporting processes.
“That Guyana is a high forest low deforestation (HFLD) country has shaped the basic thinking behind the current Guyana-Norway partnership: to reward retaining deforestation at low levels.
The Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) has built tremendous skills over the years with capacity improving year on year. The GFC team had already attained a high level of competence over the first phase of the project (Years 1-5) and have consolidated their skills in the second phase (Years 6-9).
The GFC has a very strong internal team and continues to evolve against the moving background of other evolution inside Guyana.”
One of the key objectives of the MRV’s second phase (2015 to 2020) was to improve the system to allow Guyana to continue to monitor forest change in the event of a “non-REDD+ payment” scenario.
In 2018, the GFC facilitated consultations with several agencies to identify options for further use of MRVS data and outputs for forest monitoring and management.
According to NORAD, the consultation process found considerable interest in the increased use of MRVS data across Government agencies and non-government organisations, for a broader range of potential applications linked to their areas of work.
“It is encouraging that the GFC has begun to look beyond perfecting the engineering aspects of forest monitoring, towards outreach to other sectors and the application of the data collected.
The MRVS has brought much more accuracy and specificity to the commitment in Guyana to keeping forest standing.”
While many of Guyana’s technical agencies have been making increasing use of MRVS data, the report was critical that GFC and these same agencies have been less good at explaining to politicians and to citizens in general the relevance of forest or the urgent need to be prepared for climate change.
“Still less do these categories of people probably understand how REDD+ and the MRVS can help them. Ensuring that an appropriate communication strategy reaches these two categories of people will be essential if arguments that some part of the oil revenues should be committed to forest protection and forest monitoring are to be accepted.”
The report made it clear that whatever happens at the national level, the forest will not lose its importance for local people.
“One of the really important impacts of the MRVS, is the way in which it has created the potential for links between Indigenous people and the national level. The training of local people so that they could be consulted about hotspots, trained to use GPS, and to report their findings to the national level, has created a link between remote communities and the capital which they found important.”
NORAD said that Guyana’s MRV System has over the past five years generated a wealth of data that can be utilised in improving management of the multiple uses of forests.
There is a great deal to be done in order for Guyana to be ready for an exit from Norway Guyana cooperation in 2030, the report pointed out.
“At the same time, what needs to be done has been identified and some preliminary actions have already been undertaken in that direction. The need is firstly to improve the usability of the MRVS data and access to it. Especially during the early years of oil revenues, it would be very valuable for NORAD support to the MRVS to continue.
“If Norad is prepared to continue – for an interim period – to support the MRVS, aspects of its broader applicability in other sectors and the creation of more experts with relevant technical skills, the forest will go on being high priority in Guyana.”
The report said that international assistance should slowly but steadily phase out. A trajectory for doing this could be agreed early on and become an integral part of the Guyana-Norway collaboration going forward.
The report said that GFC has built tremendous skills over the years with capacity improving year after year.
The NORAD report recommended that MRVS experts in Guyana keep a close watch on the progress of the Gabon case, learning both from colleagues in Gabon and from Norway itself.
“Guyana is now in a position after nearly 10 years of development to teach others how to create an MRVS as effective as their own.
“The country’s programme has already featured in the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report, and the GFC team now needs to seek other opportunities to publicise Guyana’s progress, and to position itself and its forests to increase its international reputation.”
The Guyana lesson would be critical as several countries across the globe have been flagged for deforestation.

 

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