If the portents of the recent World Wildlife Fund Report on carbon credits are anything to go by it would clearly be in Guyana’s interest the undertake a comprehensive rethink of the role of our forests in the country’s development.  Historically, the economic value of our forests has been measured in terms that have had to do with their depletion, that is, the cutting and selling of our forests as raw timber and to a much lesser extent as processed timber and other value-added products.

The global focus on climate change − which we are told is probably the single greatest international emergency − has placed an altogether different perspective on the value of forests. Preserving them as a storehouse for carbons that contribute to devastating climate change is, we are told, the way to go.

What this means in essence  is that considerations of national economic gain from forest products have now become intertwined with the global focus on preserving rainforests as a means of preserving the planet itself; and, we are told, the situation has become sufficiently urgent to cause large companies and developed countries to be inclined to pay well for the preservation of those large tracts of rainforest that remain standing  in order to seek to arrest – or at least reduce – the volume of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.

The short-term projected  carbon credit earnings – projected in the WWF report at just over $US50M annually is by no means earth-shattering. It is the future, however, that appears more encouraging. The estimated global carbon market is believed to be somewhere in the region of  around $US100B,  though it has to be said – and the WWF report makes this clear −  that research into methods of measuring carbon credits and developing the various procedures and protocols for creating a structured carbon market  are still in a more-or-less “juvenile” stage.
Be that as it may, it is clear that a point has long been reached where experts are entirely convinced that revisiting the role of forests is critical to combating climate change.

For countries like Guyana, of course, the challenge lies in embracing the role of forests as a strategic weapon in the fight against climate change, while contemplating the adjustments that this commitment will necessitate in terms of the traditional role of forests as a money earner, and the dependence of families on earnings from the forestry sector in a situation of prevailing high unemployment.

Some of the indicators in terms of the potential earning capacity of forest countries from carbon credits are good. For example, the WWF report indicates that the value of carbon markets continues to grow even in the face of the current global economic crisis while the banking community in Europe already envisages a time when carbon will become the world’s biggest commodity market.

All of this, of course, is somewhat futuristic, though it has to be said that in this case it is the pace at which the world’s environmental resources are being depleted rather than the pace at which political leaders choose to move that will ultimately determine the pace at which the international carbon market develops.

Here in Guyana there is evidence that President Bharrat Jagdeo has been paying a measure of interest in the evolving global debate on climate change and the role of carbon markets, and one can even argue that he has been part of that global debate. Here at home, however, where the process of public education is usually much slower, relatively little is generally known about the international discourses on carbon credits despite the obvious importance of this issue to the forestry sector, the business community, the national economy and the country as a whole. Down the road, questions could arise about issues like a possible significant reduction – or perhaps even a total cessation of traditional economic activity in the forestry sector and ways in which the carbon credits that we accumulate in exchange for our commitment to forestry conservation will be used to offset  loss of earnings by the individuals and industries that depend on that sector; and in the face of what is likely to be a scarcity of forests for timber and other wood products is there not likely to be a greater demand for timber and a consequential huge responsibility on the part of governments that have committed their forest resources to carbon credits to protect those forests from the illegal felling of trees?

These are of course simplified arguments in what is a much more complex global discourse. However, at the end of the day, closely following the global discourse on carbon credits, and, more importantly, simplifying and sharing information with the society as a whole, ought to be the real focus of government and those various other organizations concerned with issues pertaining to climate change and the environment.