…for protecting forest, VP Jagdeo says
MAINTAINING that forests are central to tackling climate change and must be coupled with robust efforts and not just philanthropy, Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, on Saturday said Guyana could earn, at a minimum, US$2.5 billion more in the next 10 years.
Guyana recently earned US$750 million for protecting its forest, according to Dr Jagdeo, who was speaking at the World Climate Action Summit in Dubai under the theme “Protecting Nature for Climate, Lives, and Livelihoods.”

He shared the stage with the Presidents of Indonesia and Ghana and also speaking at the event were Brazilian President Lula Da Silva and French President Emmanuel Macron, among others.
After listing the four elements that are vital in preserving all forests, Dr Jagdeo highlighted the strides that Guyana has been making such as the integration of forests into a national development strategy, making Indigenous people and those who live in the forests apart of the solution to climate change and identifying a revenue stream for an alternate use of the forests.
He said: “… In Guyana’s case, we’ve been [keeping] our forests intact; 86 per cent of the country is covered with forests. We have one of the lowest deforestation rates,” adding that the government has recently been able to certify the entire forests certified at the jurisdictional scale through the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART).

The Vice President also outlined that implementation of the national carbon-credits programme, which is already seeing rapid implementation at the village level.
In February 2023, Amerindian communities received the first allocation from the sale of carbon credits in their dedicated village bank accounts. Subsequent to this, villages identified priority areas of investments in village plans that were developed by the villages themselves.

Dr. Jagdeo also highlighted that capacity is being developed to effectively manage projects that are being provided by supporting leaders with the task of developing their communities and providing them with the tools necessary to assure sustainability and effective management of their projects.
He also outlined how the funds would be allocated, explaining that 15 per cent of the total would go towards Amerindian villages and communities and that the remaining 85 per cent would be used mainly for efforts to adapt to climate change.

The world’s first TREES credits were notably awarded to Guyana by the ART in December 2022. It was the first time a nation had received carbon credits created especially for the voluntary and compliant carbon markets for effectively preventing the loss and degradation of forests, a procedure known as jurisdictional REDD+, which was a significant milestone.
Guyana received 33.47 million TREES credits from ART for the five-year period between 2016 and 2020 after the Board of Directors of ART approved the project and concluded an independent evaluation and verification process. This made it possible for Hess Corporation and the Guyana government to reach a historic deal in which the oil giants decided to buy one-third of all Guyana’s credits—both issued and projected—up until 2030.