Guyana lobbies for more countries to join Global Biodiversity Alliance

…as President seeks to build intl coalition to protect declining biodiversity

As world leaders gather in neighbouring Brazil for the United Nations (UN) Conference of Parties (COP30), President Dr Irfaan Ali used the opportunity to lobby several countries to join the Global Biodiversity Alliance (GBA).

The Guyanese Head of State was recently in Belém, Brazil for the World Leaders Summit held last week, ahead of this week’s COP30 negotiations. While there, President Ali engaged leaders from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Germany, Ireland and Norway on signing onto the Alliance. The GBA is a new platform crafted by Dr Ali that seeks to elevate biodiversity on global agendas. Stemming from the inaugural GBA Summit held in Georgetown in July of this year, the GBA Secretariat would be set up in Guyana and will work with key stakeholders to advance its priorities, which includes the designation of new protected areas, and securing the necessary funding and resources for managing them effectively. To date, 14 countries have joined the Alliance as founding members, and agreed on a concrete action plan. The first meeting of the founding members will be hosted in 2026, and according to President Ali, he intends to significantly increase the Alliance’s membership by next year’s summit. He made this statement on the sidelines of COP30, during an appearance alongside regional leaders, on a panel discussion that focused on the theme, ‘Guyana pathway to climate change resilience: Scaling low-carbon leadership and conserving biodiversity.’
There, the Guyanese leader explained that the GBA aims to build an international coalition with every stakeholder given a seat at the table. “In the last two days, we have spent a lot of time talking to different leaders and organisations on the Global Biodiversity Alliance. And I am convinced that by the time we get to the second summit in Guyana, we want to have at least 60 countries signing on. We are pushing hard at this. We want everyone, every voice to be part of this,” Ali declared. Currently, with more than 70 per cent of the world’s biodiversity already lost, the Guyanese leader impressed on the importance of putting this ecosystem on the COP agenda. In fact, as negotiations commence today in Belém, he urged stakeholders to push for the work of the GBA to be included in the outcome document as part of the strategy going forward.

Steep decline in biodiversity
“According to the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) Living Climate Report of 2024, there has been a catastrophic 73 per cent decline in biodiversity…over the last 50 years. Freshwater populations have suffered the heaviest decline, falling by 85 per cent; followed by terrestrial, 69 per cent; and marine population, 56 per cent. “
“95 per cent of biodiversity loss was recorded in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and we know that the Caribbean is exposed to the greatest climate events and destruction, and we have 95 per cent biodiversity loss in Latin America and the Caribbean,” he pointed out. Citing climate change as among the most evident threats to biodiversity, particularly in LAC, President Ali stated that biodiversity is linked to medicine, to health, to science, to food security and to indigenous culture, indigenous rights and community development. “It is the most cross-cutting theme in the climate discussion. But we have not had biodiversity on the front burner,” he contended, adding that “We are looking at the future. We are looking at how Guyana can and must contribute to the survival of our planet. So, the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) 2030 took biodiversity as a central theme.” In pushing this agenda globally, the Guyanese Head of State explained that it was important to raise awareness, build solidarity among all the stakeholders in understanding the importance of biodiversity, and highlight the critical role everyone has to play in conservation efforts instead of calling for financing at the initial stages. But according to President Ali, he is now ready and willing to make the investment necessary to have a global Centre of Excellence for biodiversity in Guyana. In fact, Guyana is already working with United States (US)-based Yale University to establish this centre and to build a global mechanism through which the facility would be the hub for research, development, policy making, education, marketing, developing financing models. “We want the centre to really be the core of everything we must achieve in the biodiversity equation,” he asserted.

Landmark collaboration agreement
The Guyana Government signed the landmark collaboration agreement with the Yale Centre for Biodiversity and Global Change during the GBA summit earlier this year in Georgetown. Under this agreement, Yale—through Map of Life, their global biodiversity intelligence platform — will work with Guyana to support the GBA and help design a world-class International Centre of Excellence for Biodiversity Research here. The university will also build a national biodiversity information system, with maps, dashboards, and data layers; and guide the application of cutting-edge biodiversity science to decision-making processes. The Yale Centre for Biodiversity and Global Change is a research centre at Yale University dedicated to studying and understanding the patterns, drivers, and consequences of biodiversity change on a global scale.