In last week’s column I had expressed my concern over the variations in the stated area of Guyana’s total forest cover that are to be found in the LCDS and associated documents. As I reported these occur both across specialist publications dealing with Guyana’s forests, as well as, surprisingly, just as frequently within the same publication. The LCDS is a prime example of the latter.
That such variation has not yet been cleared up in regard to the most basic of all indicators – total forest area, is indeed remarkable. This undoubtedly fuels scepticism about the analytic/scientific rigour of both drafts of the LCDS.
As I mentioned in last Sunday’s column, several months ago Janette Bulkan in her 10-part series on the LCDS had explicitly raised the issue of the existence of four different areas for Guyana’s total forest cover, appearing in official documents submitted by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) to the World Bank, in seeking support from the Forest Carbon Partnership Fund (FCPF) for Guyana. These include both the Quick Assessment Report and Guyana’s R-Plan.
A cause for concern
Based on a surface area of 21.5 million hectares, Guyana’s total land area comprises 19.7 million hectares in land with the remainder (1.8 million hectares) being water. With this background Janette Bulkan had pointed out that the Quick Assessment Report sent by the GFC, to the FCPF in February 2009 gave Guyana’s forest area as 18.0 million hectares. In a subsequent submission to the FCPF a few months later (May 2009), the total given was 16.1 million hectares (see revised report)!
Further, in the R-Plan submissions to the FCPF, the GFC cited a total of 18.5 million hectares for Guyana’s forest cover, while the same R-Plan also reports the forest area as 75 per cent of Guyana’s land area of 21.5 million hectares, which is equal to 16.1 million hectares of forest!
Such imprecision is a cause for concern. After all, the range in the estimates is from 16.0 to 18.5 million acres. This is a substantial difference, 2.5 million hectares. Such a large difference compounds the problems in estimating 1) the true size of the state forest sector 2) the remaining area under Amerindian title 3) the absolute area deemed as unproductive in the calculation of the economic value that could be obtained from the sale of Guyana’s forests 4) the size of the absolute area designated in the LCDS to preserve bio-diversity and 5) the consequent total of the greenhouse gases emissions, which Guyana’s forests could potentially place on offer for sale in global markets trading in carbon emissions.
Janette Bulkan had asked the rhetorical, but pointed question: If there are 18.5 million hectares of forest in Guyana, with 13.8 million hectares in the State Forest Estate sector and 1.7 million hectares in Amerindian lands, then who owns and/or administers the balance of 3.0 million hectares?
But alternatively, there is the mystery of the 15 million hectares of forest mentioned in the LCDS and its relation to the GFC’s estimate of 18.5 million hectares submitted to the FCPF. Why, we may ask, is there so much variation in this basic figure?
Comparing Guyana’s
forest cover (FAO)
In its most recent 8th biannual Report on the State of the World’s Forests (2009) the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) gives Guyana forest cover as 15.104 million hectares, which is the equivalent of 76.7 per cent of its land area of 19.7 million hectares. It also gives a zero per cent annual rate of change for this forest cover during the years 1990-2005. This total forest cover was larger than in Suriname (14.776 million hectares), French Guiana (8.063), and the Caribbean (1.285) million hectares. For further comparison, all other South American countries except Uruguay (1.506 million hectares) had a larger forest cover than Guyana.
Significantly, for the later discussion to follow, the FAO has recognised in its 2009 Report that “some countries and regions are better prepared to face the upcoming challenges and take advantage of emerging opportunities, while others still lack essential institutional, legal and economic conditions to manage the forest resources in a sustainable manner” (Page VIII). In this context the FAO also realistically recognises that, as we shall see as we dig deeper into the LCDS, the effort to desist from deforestation involves very complex and complicated policy, institutional, legal and ethical issues.
Indeed it is based on the FAO data that the LCDS claims (boasts!) that Guyana has an exemplary track record of sustainable forestry practices. As the LCDS states: “The country has a strong track record of sustainable practices, with FAO statistics demonstrating no net loss of forest cover between 1990 and 2005” (LCDS, Page 40).
Norway again!
There are two further statistics, which readers may find intriguing. First, during the same FAO assessment period (1990-2005) Norway increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent! As I shall show later, this supports my contention that Norway’s relations with Guyana are based, as it should be, on protecting Norway’s interests. It is at best the typical, naked, cynical, and self-serving relation often found between rich and poor countries. Those pushing the LCDS as the key to Guyana’s future, therefore, should not try to deceive us or them that the MOU between the Government of Guyana and the Government of the Kingdom of Norway has a moral or philanthropic basis. Or, for that matter, it is inspired by deep humanitarian concerns over the threats posed by climate change and global warming to the world’s environment. This would be very naive.
The other interesting, but not so well known statistic, is that while Guyana ranks 37 among the 222 countries having forest cover; interestingly, Norway ranks 56. This places Norway in the top quartile of countries with significant forest cover. Its total area in forest is 9.387 million hectares, which covers about 3 per cent of its land area. This forest cover has been increasing at an annual rate of 0.2 per cent. True to form, this rate is less than one tenth of that for the best performing Caribbean country (Cuba, 2.2 per cent) and is less than one-half that of Western Europe (0.45 per cent). The total area under forest in Norway is about two-thirds the size of Guyana’s forest cover.
Next week I shall pursue this line of discussion as a lead-in to the discussion of Guyana’s role in generating for commercial sale offsets for historic global polluters to continue their pollution of the world’s atmosphere.
