PULL QUOTE: Imagine a world where there is a consensus that preservation of the rainforest is a valuable initiative, not least economically, over the long term. Then imagine yourself as the President of a poor country, the bulk of whose natural resources exist in the country’s great rainforests – timber, diamond, gold even sand

PULL QUOTE: The Jagdeo Initiative is visionary because it presents a third option, one based on the merger of the best elements of both choices
BEFORE I SAY anything else, let me admit that until recently, my interest, outside of overall policy, in the topic dealt with in this article was virtually nil. What prompted my delving into it was being approached by a young man who, erroneously, assumed that I could further explain the little he had picked up from media reports about the issue. I, of course, wasn’t able to immediately respond, and promised to look into the matter; it was this investigation which formed the basis for the rest of this article.

Now, ever since the level of publicity brought to the issue of climate change by the activism taken up by former US Vice-President Al Gore, and the subsequent Nobel Prize he received (along with the scientists on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the tide has turned in the debate on global climate change. There is no doubt any longer that human activity, including deforestation, is a contributing factor to climate change.

When President Bharrat Jagdeo launches Guyanas Low Carbon Development Strategy tomorrow, one of the central aims will be the shoring up of support for the President’s initiative of using avoided deforestation as a basis for economic development. Indeed, the bulk of the strategy paper as posted on the Government Information Agency (GINA) website is almost verbatim an Office of the President (OP) paper entitled, Creating Incentives to Avoid Deforestation.

The President’s introduction to the latter paper reads, in part:

It is built on the premise that much deforestation happens because individuals, communities and countries pursue legitimate economic activities – such as selling timber or earning money and creating jobs in agriculture. The world economy values these activities. It does not value most of the services that forests provide when trees are kept alive, including the avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions. Correcting this market failure is the only long-term solution to deforestation.

This is a summary, and perhaps an inadequate one, of the thrust of logic behind the Presidents forestry initiative. To expand upon it, and put in simpler language, people use the forest to make a living through several activities, all of which are harmful to forests — the very forests that are necessary to slow the pace of climate change. Even as the effects of climate change continue to be harmful to the world as a whole, often negating the results of the very activities that result in the destruction of forests, people — global leadership in particular — refuse to place significant value on keeping the forests alive.

Imagine a world where there is a consensus that preservation of the rainforest is a valuable initiative, not least economically, over the long-term. Then imagine yourself as the President of a poor country, the bulk of whose natural resources exist in the countrys great rainforests — timber, diamond, gold, and even sand. Because of changes in the global economic system, your traditional sources of revenue have been negatively affected. Your people are depending on you to ensure that new economic avenues are being explored, most of which exist, naturally, in the rainforest. However, in the wider world, there is a consensus that preserving the rainforest is a good initiative over the long-term. The moral questions of choice therefore, are: Do you preserve the forests and subject your people to even more economic hardship, or do you exploit the natural resources and let somebody else develop another way to avoid deforestation? Do you save yourself, or do you save the world?

The Jagdeo Initiative is visionary because it presents a third option, one based on the merger of the best elements of both choices. The President’s reasoning is as simple as it is profound: There should be no reason why, in a world where the top few richest nations dwarf the rest of the world in terms of wealth, those with money should not compensate those with standing forests for sacrificing economic exploitation of these resources for the good of the world.

If, for example, America knows that global warming will greatly increase their chances of flooding (New Orleans being a wake up call!) and cost billions of dollars in damage if forests around the world keep disappearing, why not pay Guyana and other developing countries for foregoing the short-term economic reward of cutting down trees for lumber or mining? The President believes that this is possible.

The major problem with the Jagdeo Initiative’ at present lies in the marketing strategy to create a buy-in of the international policymakers — the ‘appropriate language and pitch have not yet been found to sell this initiative — particularly because the issue is unprecedented. Indeed, after speaking to several local policymakers, I came away with the strong impression that it is not widely understood even in Guyana.

I would urge the President, and those assisting him in publicizing this issue, to ensure that what is being said is being understood. Over the next week, hopefully, what we will see is an increased effort to sell this initiative to the local and regional public, including public officers. Since this is an initiative with long-term implications, there is a future plan to foster the establishment of a mechanism in the public education system that will further enable an understanding of this initiative.

Hopefully, in the future, whenever some young person approaches some figure in authority, or even an average citizen on the street, seeking to find out more about this initiative, there will not be the sort of inability to respond that I have recently experienced.