Ecosystem Services

“The LCDS is a framework intended to map the path of a new growth trajectory in a non-polluting way. Tropical forest countries have long called for the ecosystem services provided by the world’s standing tropical forests to be properly valued, through both public and private finance. This will enable people who live in forests and forest countries to create jobs and economic opportunity from an economy that works with nature, instead of today’s reality where forests are often worth more dead than alive.”

President of Guyana (2009)

Sequestration and Storage of Carbon

In 2009, Guyana and Norway started a partnership to create the building blocks for a global market-based mechanism for REDD+.

Norway paid Guyana for “forest climate services” – as a fore-runner to forest carbon credits – and Guyana invested the payments in LCDS priorities to create jobs, low carbon infrastructure and invest in forest-dependent communities.

For 12 years, significant progress has been made on all building blocks, notably the creation of one of the world’s most advanced forest Monitoring, Reporting and Verification Systems (MRVS).

CONSERVE
Guyana's 18 million hectares of forest store over 19.5Gt of Co2. Guyana aims to maintain 99.5% of this forest as a global asset.
REMOVE
Every year, Guyana's forests remove 154 million tons of Co2 from the earth's atmosphere.
REDUCE
Guyana aims to keep deforestation rates at 90% below the global average.
RESTORE
Guyana aims to regrow about 200,000 hectares of forest as a priority.
Previous
Next

Guyana's National Annual Deforestation Rate Compared with Global Tropical Deforestation Rates

Maintaining Low Deforestation Rates Over the Last Decade in Guyana

Biodiversity Services

Cultural Services