Guyana can be beacon of preserving inter-generational wealth – UN Rep

On the occasion of World Environment Day, Guyana along with the rest of the world pledged to rehabilitate the environment and restore the eco-system to its actual position. During a recent webinar, it was recognised that Guyana has little restoration to do but several suggestions were still floated as to how the country can continue to preserve its rich eco-system.
World Environmental Day this year is being observed under the theme: “Ecosystem Restoration.”

According United Nations Resident Coordinator in Guyana, Mikiko Tanaka, the world is facing a triple planetary emergency of biodiversity loss, climate disruption and escalating pollution. However, she noted that Guyana has little work to do on this end.
“Guyana’s strength is that it has relatively minimal ecosystem restoration needed, and can be a beacon for preserving intergenerational wealth. With 87% relatively intact forest cover. The good news is that Guyana can be forward looking and conserving its valuable ecosystem, as it pursues development, ambitions and agenda, while restoring areas where environmental degradation is advancing,” she said.
Among the areas Tanaka outlined that Guyana can tap into to further conserve and restore its eco-system is the preservation of coast mangroves and its hinterland forests.
Nevertheless, the UN Resident Coordinator went on to laud Guyana’s efforts so far to combat the climate crisis.
“Guyana has been a trailblazer and good practices of mitigating carbon emission from forests loss and land degradation and innovating financing schemes under the Low Carbon Development Strategy and opportunities are expanding as our new challenges with the nascent but fast evolving oil sector. The Government’s plan to invest in low carbon development, economic diversification, job creation and human resources are critical drivers (sources), even the SDGs”.
The approach to expand the Low Carbon Development Strategy, she noted, adopt a system of payments for environmental ecosystem services and incentivise good environmental performance by the Private Sector are innovative initiatives.
This year’s World Environmental Day will see the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a ten-year global push to prevent, halt and reverse ecosystem degradation.
This initiative was launched after a recent United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report found that the economic benefits of ecosystem restoration are compelling.
Between now and 2030, the restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems could generate US$9 trillion in ecosystem services and remove up to 26 gigatons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The economic benefits are ten times more than the cost of investment, whereas inaction is at least three times more costly than ecosystem restoration.