GUYANA joined six fellow Amazonian countries on Friday in Letecia, Colombia to sign a pact to protect the world’s largest tropical forest.
The pact, signed at a time when the Amazon is under threat from fires, aims to coordinate disaster response and satellite monitoring, the Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana said in a statement Saturday. Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, who represented President David Granger, signed on behalf of Guyana.
Colombia’s President, Ivan Duque; Bolivia’s President, Evo Morales; Ecuador’s President, Lenin Moreno and Peru’s President, Martin Vizcarra were the Heads of State who signed. Suriname’s Vice-President, Michael Ashwin Adhin, and Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Ernesto Araujo, signed the pact on behalf of their respective countries.
Minister Trotman, in delivering a message on behalf of President Granger, reiterated to the South American leaders that, “our President is the visionary who conceptualised the Green State Development Strategy (GSDS) for Guyana – it is our lighted path towards attaining a ‘green’ and sustainable economy and is open to be shared and improved upon.”
“An inferno in the Amazon, two-thirds of which is in Brazil, and the reason for us being here, threatens the rainforest eco-system and also affects the entire globe,” Minister Trotman related. “The effects of damage to the Amazon go far beyond Brazil and its neighbours. We are the lungs of the earth, we must all breathe to live. Therefore, our presence here is in recognition of the value and importance of the Amazon, and the Guiana Shield, and our role as custodians, stewards and guardians of it,” Minister Trotman asserted.
The world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, which produces approximately 20 per cent of earth’s oxygen and spans eight countries, Guyana included, covers 40 per cent of South America, and is inhabited by 30 million people and, is home as well to vast numbers of mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles, most of them, unique to the region and where a new plant or animal species is discovered every two days.
More particularly, Guyana is part of the Guiana Shield, which, in the words of President Granger, “is the single most important zone of biodiversity in the world today.”
Trotman reminded the forum that Guyana committed 371,000 hectares of its pristine rainforest, Iwokrama, to the Commonwealth in 1989 in Kuala Lumpur at a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. “Then, we sought to advance the sustainable management of tropical rainforest. We believe this remains a good model for sustainability. His Excellency, President Granger has pledged another two million hectares to conservation and steps have been taken to affirm this pledge.
He said Guyana’s presence at the forum is a result of the country’s deepest concerns for the health and safety of our Brazilian brothers and sisters, in particular, and for the preservation of the Amazon rainforest that links all of our states. “It was in this continent some 27 years ago in Rio, when our nations gathered, along with the international community, under the guidance of the United Nations, to craft what was heralded as the blueprint for sustainable development by both governments and the more than 50,000 people from non-governmental organisations, the media and the peoples of our eight countries – not least the Indigenous Peoples, who were present. Under the guidance of the UN, the Rio Principles and Agenda 21 came into being. Today we meet in sobering times – our forest resources are on fire as are others across the world. The tropical forests of the world are under threat from multiple realities. And we are gathered to acknowledge this and to find a way forward. The loss of biodiversity, forests, and the home of our Indigenous Peoples to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude, are all a clarion call to action.”
Quoting Guyanese poet laureate Martin Carter: “Like a jig shakes a loom all are involved, all are consumed,” Trotman told the gathering and further added that, “We are enjoined by Principle seven of the Rio Declaration which sets out that:
“States shall co-operate in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the Earth’s ecosystem. In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.”
Indeed, he said all the countries represented have common, but differentiated responsibilities “and this is the true essence of why we are gathered here today. Our common responsibility amplified over the more than two decades of international, regional and national agreements, not least the Amazon Cooperation Treaty, demands of us all a joint solution to our shared resource, whilst at the same time, rrecognising our sovereign rights as stated.”
“Guyana wishes to offer its full support to Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia who are currently on the frontline of a new environmental reality. Even now, we are gathering resources at home to send to our sister Caribbean state the Bahamas that has been laid bare by the brutal forces of Hurricane Dorian. The loss of life, the loss of their built heritage, the loss of their biodiversity through the vicious winds and water are a scaled model of what has, and is occurring, is the Amazon.” “Our countries’ vulnerabilities will require our collective strengths and contributions to develop mitigation measures that will build our resilience to the negative impacts of climate change. It is Guyana’s sincere wish that at today’s end we would have achieved this objective, and can demonstrate to the world, that we of the Amazon Region are committed to the protection and preservation of our forests. Guyana stands ready to stand, to work and to fight with brother and sister states in order to preserve and protect our Amazon Rainforest.”
Guyana’s ambassador to Brazil, George Talbot, joined Minister Trotman who was accompanied by Head of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility Project (FCPF), Mr. Clayton Hall. Minister Trotman and Mr. Hall travelled with the Surinamese delegation yesterday and returned to Guyana last evening.
