Guyana, European Commission sign Forest Partnership roadmap

Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat and European Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen on Friday signed a roadmap for the implementation of the Guyana-European Union (EU) Forest Partnership with the aim of managing Guyana’s forests and promoting the forest bioeconomy.
This roadmap establishes the EU and Guyana’s commitment to reaching a set number of targets by 2030.
These include: maintaining 12.5 million hectares of sustainably managed forests; expanding protected and conserved forests to 30 per cent of terrestrial and marine species; increasing restored forest to 200,000 hectares; increasing the number of forest-related decent jobs; and maintaining the rate of deforestation of natural forests below 0.01 per cent per annum.

Urpilainen reiterated the Commission’s commitment to supporting the work jointly carried out with Guyana.
“Guyana wants to protect and use its forests sustainably. I am glad that we will continue to work together as partners on this shared ambition. The Forest Partnership will help us reach our joint climate and biodiversity goals while promoting socio-economic development.”
Furthermore, Urpilainen and Bharrat also discussed the next steps of the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) after its entry into force in June of this year.
This agreement on bilateral trade aims to improve forest governance and ensure the harvesting and trade of legal timber.
The duo agreed on the next steps to implement the VPA towards the licensing system.
The Forest Partnership and the FLEGT VPA are expected to help Guyana enhance its forest bioeconomy and attract public and private investments while contributing to climate and biodiversity objectives and reinforcing the rights of local communities and Indigenous people.
In November during COP27, Guyana was one of five countries to sign a Memorandum of Understanding for a Forest Partnership with the European Commission.
This worked as an acknowledgment of the challenges posed to forests by climate change and development needs as well as the opportunity to position forests to play their full economic, social, and environmental roles.