THIS week, NAREI in Focus continues to highlight programmes undertaken by the institute that are helping Guyana to satisfy its obligations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s “Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture” (KJWA).

The KJWA Roadmap recognised the climate change challenges –- both adaptation and mitigation –- faced by the agricultural sector and the need for bold, urgent and transformative actions to meet these challenges. It also recognised that these actions must be led by countries, farmers, researchers, investors and the private sector; and for effective transformation to occur, agriculture must be seen in a broad sense as including policies, services and institutions.

The thematic area being highlighted this week is Methods and approaches for assessing adaptation, adaptation co-benefits and resilience This thematic area recognises that attempts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions or manage the effects of climate change traditionally focus on management or policy options that promote single outcomes (e.g., either benefiting ecosystems or human health and well-being). In contrast, co-benefit approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation address climate change impacts on human and ecological health in tandem and on a variety of spatial and temporal scales.

Mangrove Restoration
Coastal regions of Guyana are highly vulnerable to climate impacts. Sea-level rise, coastal storm events, and natural resource scarcity have impacted Guyana’s coastal ecosystems and society. These climate impacts intersect with other anthropogenic stressors contributing to the degradation of coastal habitats and ecosystems (driven by, among other things, development, encroachment and pollution), increasing the risk of coastal hazards.

Ecosystem-Based Adaptation
NAREI’s Mangrove Restoration and Management Programme seeks to sustainably manage and restore Guyana’s coastal mangrove ecosystem as part of the country’s overall climate-change adaptation and mitigation programme. Interventions over the years have resulted in extensive restoration of the mangrove ecosystems providing increased resilience of coastal communities and agricultural lands to floods, due to storm surges and sea-level rise.

Restored Mangroves at Number 7 Village, West Coast Restored Mangroves, Lima, Essequibo
Berbice Providing Primary Sea Defence Coast, Region Two.

NAREI has conducted restoration at 26 sites, through seedling planting, construction of geotextile groynes, bamboo sediment traps and rock groynes. Over 500,000 black mangrove seedlings have been planted and the restored mangroves are now providing protection for the communities of Chateau Margot to Ogle on the East Coast, Anna Regina to Devonshire Castle on the Essequibo Coast and Village No. 2 to Village No. 11, West Coast Berbice.

In addition to the coastal protection services provided by mangroves, they also sequester carbon. An assessment conducted on Guyana’s mangrove forest based on a 2016 mangrove extent of 26,836 hectares, estimated our carbon stock at 6.1 million tonnes above ground biomass and 4.1 million Tons of Soil Carbon.

Future programmes by NAREI will see the development of a spatial mangrove-monitoring platform which will provide yearly assessments of our mangrove extent and analysis of the carbon-storage potential of Guyana’s mangrove ecosystem.