Guyana lost US$22.7 million as a result of increased deforestation in 2012 as well as for its sloth in moving to join a transparency initiative under its forest protection agreement with Norway.
Last Friday, Oslo announced that it would contribute US$35 million to Guyana for Year 3 of the five-year agreement. Although the figure represents an expected drop in earnings, President Donald Ramotar in an address to the nation had characterised the announcement as “a strong rebuttal” to those who tried to “kill” government’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and the Guyana-Norway partnership. Guyana and Norway have a five-year pact under which Oslo will pay up to US$250 million based on Guyana’s efforts in protecting its forest and meeting enabling indicators.
In explaining the performance-based payments to Guyana for 2012, Norway calculated the value of “avoided emissions from deforestation” to be US$66.5 million.
However, due to loss of intact forest landscapes, which was calculated to be 174 hectares, this was reduced by US$957,870. According to the Technical Note provided, Guyana and Norway have agreed that this indicator might be phased out in the future, in parallel with a process initiated by Guyana to ensure more permanent status of varying
