THE announcement this week by the Government of  Norway on the release of the fifth annual payment of US$40M to Guyana under the Agreement on Forest and Climate has reaffirmed that Guyana has maintained effective management of its natural resources sector, specifically in the areas of forestry and mining.This is due to the continuous high level of performance under the Guyana Norway Forest and Climate Agreement, and as such continued collaboration between Guyana and Norway is possible.  This renewal of the partnership is currently being discussed.  At the recent mission which was led by the Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment  and staff of the Guyana Forestry Commission, and the Project Management Office, various aspects of the Agreement were discussed, and joint commitments made to collaboratively move forward to achieve the common goals that Guyana and Norway share on climate and forests.

Guyana’s deforestation rate has been maintained at a low level in 2013 at 0.068%, the year for which the fifth payment applies, and has been significantly reduced from the 2012 deforestation rate of 0.079%.  This 14% reduction is important as it signals the impact of effective policy implementation and management of the two main natural resources sector.  This achievement also is important from the global perspective, as Guyana has maintained one of the lowest deforestation rates in the world, and effectively less than 15% of the average for all tropical countries.

The reporting of deforestation has been as a result of a well-developed, internationally credible Monitoring Reporting and Verification System (MRVS) that has seen 4 annual reports released and independently verified, through third party auditors.  The MRVS Report for 2013 has concluded that the total forested area as at end of 2013 was estimated as 18.39 million hectares (with an indicative accuracy of 97.1%).
Forest change between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2013 was determined using high resolution 5 m imagery for the whole of Guyana. The change reported in this assessment captures only the change that took place in the 12 month period under review – Year 4. The continued wall to wall Rapid Eye coverage at 5m resolution has allowed the boundaries and the drivers of change to be mapped with greater certainty.

The inclusion of Landsat 8 images into the detection process has enabled the assessment of change for areas under persistent cloud. This allows for spatial tracking of forest change areas through time as outlined under Approach 3 of the IPCC Good Practice Guidelines.