Guyana: Conservation international puts another $8 million into carbon credits

Conservation International Guyana (CI Guyana)  will  provide the
Guyana Forestry Commission with $8M to support the establishment of a
special secretariat which will  be involved in  figuring out just how
much carbon Guyana has in its forests and how to calculate it. The
establishment of the quantity of carbon  will serve as a monitoring
tool and it is expected to become of even greater value as Guyana
pursues the sale of forest carbon credits, CI Guyana stated in a press
release yesterday. The Reduced Emissions from Deforestation  and
Forest Degradation (REDD) secretariat is part of Guyana’s pursuit of
an avoided deforestation strategy under the REDD initiative  and will
serve to coordinate the country’s efforts and facilitate national
readiness, the release said.

It stated further that one of the main
components of the grant agreement is the establishment of scientific
methods that can be used to assess Guyana’s  forest carbon stocks  at
a national level. And once these methods have been developed Guyana
will be able to calculate what  exactly it has in terms of forest
carbon stocks and then to  monitor its use. The secretariat will be
housed in the GFC and will be part of the larger support for
government’s policy and strategy initiatives to establish the
country’s role as a leader in climate change efforts for areas with
high forest cover and low rates of deforestation. Guyana is promoting
a low carbon economy and is campaigning for the rest of the world to
recognize the need to pay for standing forests as a mitigation measure
against climate change. Globally, the release noted, many hope that
REDD, a mechanism for compensating  countries for reducing emissions
from deforestation and degradation will generate funds for tropical
countries Guyana is  one of some 11 countries that are characterized
by high forest cover and low deforestation rates. These countries own
13 percent of the world’s forests but there are little incentives to
maintain these forests which  provide valuable ecosystem services to
the world, CI Guyana added.
http://www.stabroeknews.com/news/guyana-moving-to-assess-forest-carbon-stocks-for-sale-of-credits/