I wish to refer to an article in the Monday July 5, 2010 edition of Kaieteur News captioned “Guyana among countries named as UN is warned about corruption”.
The other countries mentioned in the correspondence are competent enough to make relevant responses, but permit me to address some serious misrepresentations which have been made about Guyana in the article. The statement: “…many, including Guyana, intend to abuse the system in order to collect the money while carrying on logging as usual;” is an insult to the people of Guyana, and totally incorrect.

As someone closer to the Forestry sector let me point out that Guyana is a country which has been undertaking commercial harvesting activities for centuries, yet we have a rate of deforestation that is scientifically proven to be less that 1%.

This is only possible because of the sound forest policies and sustainable forest management guidelines that we have been implementing, coupled with other enabling factors such as good governance, effective functional institutions and national oversight of this important valued resource.

Our country has also made it abundantly clear that since over 80% of our land area is covered with forests, forest utilization would have to play a major role in promoting and accelerating our socio-economic development.

The so-called international environmental groups that “have called for a radical rethink of the UN REDD programe…” are strongly advised to read these documents carefully before making inaccurate statements  about countries like Guyana which have demonstrated globally that whilst not being part of the problem; (i.e. they have not contributed in any significant way to increasing global levels of GHG’s and Global Warming); they are magnanimously prepared to be part of a global solution, even if it means foregoing accelerated economic development by sustainably managing their forest resources.

Ideally, the so-called international environmental groups should be praising and congratulating Guyana for this noble stand; their tirades should be directed to the developed countries which progressed on the basis of over exploitation of their natural resources, especially forests.
These “groups” should really be pressuring the Governments of these countries to commit to reducing GHG’s whilst at the same time, providing adequate, guaranteed and timely technical and financial resources to countries like Guyana to help catalyze national development along a Low Carbon Growth Path.

The correspondence also states: “Guyana intends to use some of its REDD money to pay a property dealer from Florida to build a road and major hydroelectric plant in some of its most densely forested areas. The argument here is that the project will supply a cleaner source of power to support the national grid. Nothing is mentioned about cutting down a large wide swathe of the untouched rainforest for the project”.

This is simply laughable.
Firstly, it has been stated in public that the award for road construction was via an open, public and transparent process. Also, monies to build the Hydro are not coming from UN REDD. The initial sums are actually coming from a payment for service agreement that the Government of Guyana signed with the Kingdom of Norway.

Additional funding will be obtained from other sources including the private sector. The Guyana RPP does not mention anything about the Amelia Falls project being funded from UN REDD finances so it is a real mystery as to where the Environmental Groups and Kaieteur news got this misinformation from.

Also, the impression that a huge swathe of forest is going to be destroyed is also totally erroneous.

One would think that a project which will not only reduce Guyana’s heavy dependence on fossil fuels, but also provide cheap green energy to accelerate socio-economic development will be welcome by those who claim to be concerned about increasing GHG emissions.

In closing, Guyana wants to remind the so-called international environmental groups that it has openly committed to being subject to Independent Forest Monitoring.