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Guyana to get US$200,000 from forest carbon pact

Guyana will receive US$200,000 ($40M) from the Forest Carbon Partner-ship Facility (FCPF) to prepare its Readiness Plan (R-Plan) for combating tropical deforestation.

The Ministry of Agri-culture, in a press release yesterday said that the sum will be immediately available.

The R-Plan will outline among other activities, the methodologies to be used in carrying out assessments of historical and current emissions from deforestation and forest degradation at a national level.

It will also look at mechanisms to project and model future emissions from deforestation and degradation, and to update biomass field estimates across all land uses, both of which will be done at the national level.

“This process will involve additional extensive consultations with all stakeholders groups, especially local community residents who are an important target group in the effort to reduce deforestation and forest degradation through the use of sustainable alternative economic activities and payments for reduced emissions”, the statement said.

On Monday, the World Bank named Guyana as one of 14 developing countries selected as the first states to receive money for combating tropical deforestation and climate change from an initial US$82M partnership be-tween those countries and nine industrialized states.

The other countries to benefit are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Nepal, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Vietnam.
The countries will receive initial funding from the FCPF, an innovative approach to financing efforts to combat climate change.

The FCPF aims to reduce deforestation and forest degradation by compensating developing countries for greenhouse gas emission reductions.

The 14 tropical and sub-tropical countries will receive grant support as they build their capacity to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and tap into future systems of positive incentives for REDD.

The World Bank statement had stressed that the grant money being provided to the 14 countries in the FCPF will help them to prepare for future systems of positive incentives for REDD, in particular by establishing emissions reference levels, adopting REDD strategies, and designing monitoring systems. It added that developing countries have expressed a strong interest in participating in the FCPF and it is expected that more countries will receive support in the coming months.

At their meeting last December in Bali, the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to start demonstration activities on REDD.

The FCPF, which was announced by the World Bank at the Bali Conference, will help to finance some of these demonstration activities, the statement said.

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9 Responses to “Guyana to get US$200,000 from forest carbon pact”

Joe Coxall
on July 25th, 2008 5:37 am

$200,000,00 to protect 83,000 sq miles of forest amounts to 2.4 dollars per sq mile. Can these tree huggers be more realistic and pony up 83 million dollars please.

Joe.

[Reply to this]
yasuman71
In reply to the above comment on July 25th, 2008 9:04 am:
US$200,000 is just for preparing a “Readiness Plan (R-Plan) for combating tropical deforestation.” More money is expected after the plan is submitted and examined, I assume. All the same, this initial amount may not be enough.

[Reply to this]
Joe Coxall
In reply to the above comment on July 25th, 2008 7:12 pm:
yasuman71
Your picture icon looks like Osama talking directly to me, Don’t you go declaring no FATWA on me .OK, I am already fat. LOL

Joe.
Lawnman
on July 25th, 2008 9:45 am

Hey Joe, glad to see you did the maths. The industrialised nations are getting this acreage of land on the cheap at US2.4 per square mile.

You can’t get that much land here in the UK for less than UK£500,000 or US$1000,000 and all the trees here are gone. We can’t buy a decent house for less than UK£200,000 or US$400,000.

Land with no trees US$1000,000, land with trees US$2.4. per sq mile It seem that the rich nations are serious about pollution.

Going by the figure of US$200,000 and an estimated population in Guyana of 800,000 that works out to 25 cents for every man, woman and child, that’s the value the rich nations put on the Guyanese people.

Here in the UK a person who isn’t working and sleeping all day gets about UK£50 or US$100 a day plus free housing and tax’s paid to do nothing.

As a nation, people over here spend more on food for their pet dogs in a week than the US$200,000 Guyana is to receieve for this project. Doesn’t that tell you something?

[Reply to this]
rdman
on July 25th, 2008 11:56 am

Not only Guyana but other third world countries are sucked dry,with nice words used like, good governance,sustainable developement,debt right off,these third world countries have borrowed so much from the I.M.F/world bank, that their leaders become so corrupted, and in order to stay in power they have to dance to the tune of the creditors, and forced to accept little while their citizens become dirt poor.

[Reply to this]
Satish
on July 25th, 2008 4:49 pm

With US President (soon to be ex) George Bush’s obscene examples of stewardship of the world’s environment, I have to be cynical in suspecting that the rich countries will try and pacify poverty stricken countries like Guyana to accept THE SCRAPS FROM THE TABLES OF THE RICH to try and secure the the rainforests for the good of the world.

One foolish SN reader’s comment yesterday was that we should give Brazil an easy time because that country has only cut down HALF OF ITS RAINFORESTS.
He should, of course, find it quite acceptable that Guyana in its turn should also cut down half of its rainforests!!!

In the greedy and selfish world we live in, it is becoming clear that Guyana may indeed have to start its chainsaws to bring attention to focus on Joe Coxall’s simple formula. And of course these payments should be recurring and not one-offs!
What say you President Bush…

All is not lost because this payment is just a for a preliminary report but Guyana Government should hold a hard line to avoid giving away its rainforests for peanuts. Those forests are the lungs of planet earth and the entire planet should contribute to fund its preservation.

[Reply to this]
Sarkar 69.196.139.47 not found
on July 25th, 2008 6:27 pm

Maybe Guyana should start holding the rest of the world ‘over a log’ just like OPEC holding the rest of the world ‘over a barrel of oil’. I wonder what quality of preliminary report can be produced with this sum? Toronto has spent more than 10 times this amount on a study to determine whether it will tear down a highway!!!

[Reply to this]
carolscott
on July 25th, 2008 8:54 pm

Folks, this is still “chicken feed”. One good consultant could earn that much in a year and I’m not talking about some overseas “bigshot”…sheesh..these folks are humoring us….Call it like you see it…

[Reply to this]
Greg
on July 26th, 2008 2:50 am

I continue to emphasize that this scheme is to keep poor countries poor. I am surprised that the Min. of agriculture and Govt. have fallen for this. I am against this carbon credit theory. WE should be using our natural resources to their fullest potential.

[Reply to this]