Guyana’s President unveils global formula to finance biodiversity protection

Weary of lagging efforts to meet global pledges, President Dr Irfaan Ali said Guyana has moved to create a formula that can be used to leverage financing to conserve and protect the world’s biodiversity resources.
During an appearance on the ‘United for Biodiversity: The Alliance Podcast,’ the Head of State noted that the inaugural Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit that would be held later this month in Georgetown will direct the world’s attention to these crucial resources.

Set for July 23 to 25, this premier event will bring together world leaders and key stakeholders to discuss biodiversity as an important element in the climate equation with the intention of formulating policy and market mechanisms to support and safeguard these assets.
“We have to look at what are the contributing factors to the loss of biodiversity and how do we create an ecosystem to support, first of all, the audit, the valuation, the pricing mechanism, the market structure and the tools of getting that market. So, it is not really looking at this as pledges and financing alone, it is creating a mechanism. It is creating a market-based mechanism that I think can sell itself; a market-based mechanism that we, as a global community adopt, if we believe, as we should, that biodiversity is a key and critical issue,” President Ali stated.
According to the Head of State, Guyana has already demonstrated its leadership by keeping its rich biodiversity resources largely intact at a time when the world has lost more than 50 per cent of these assets.
Consequently, he pointed out that if action is not taken now to find such a formula to protect and conserve the world’s biodiversity assets, which are crucial for the balance of the planet, then there could be a serious crisis.
“We had all of these pledges at various COPs and we saw nothing coming out of the pledges. So, I’m just weary and tired of the pledges. But here is where Guyana has shown that we go beyond pledges. We create a product, we create a mechanism, we create a formula, and through the LCDS (Low Carbon Development Strategy) – the carbon credits, we have demonstrated how we can make this work,” the Guyanese Leader explained.
Guyana has already led the fight to have tropical forests placed on the global agenda.

The revised LCDS 2030 sets out the framework for the country to receive revenues for forest climate services from global voluntary carbon markets while also explore potential revenue streams from other ecosystem services such as Guyana’s world-class biodiversity and water resources.
President Ali stated that the LCDS is not just limited to prosperity but also focuses on a development strategy that is global in scope. He said it demonstrates, using Guyana as a model, how the rest of world can similarly achieve economic prosperity through a sustainable and resilient manner without harming the environment.
“[It’s] not to say that we don’t utilise the richness of our environment. That is not what this strategy is about. It is about how we do so in a sustainable way, in a resilient way. How do we enable this international asset, this global asset that we have in Guyana to also be a revenue earner for us so that we can finance the different initiatives, the livelihood options, that is required to safeguarding the forest, safeguarding the ecosystem, safeguarding our biodiversity and safeguarding our flora and fauna,” the Guyanese Leader stressed.
With Guyana now taking on the international responsibility to push the biodiversity agenda, the Head of State disclosed that the outcome of the upcoming summit will be shared at major global forums to leverage actions on the world stage.
He explained that there will be a comprehensive paper compiled with the key findings and learnings from the three-day biodiversity summit as well as from any agreements inked with international partners and that document will be presented at COP30 which will be held in neighbouring Brazil later this year.
“We want that document to find its way at COP. We’ve already discussed with Brazil having this attention being paid to the outcome of this [biodiversity] summit. We intend to send a full copy of the report of the summit and the papers that will emerge out of the summit to the United Nations (UN), so that we can start the long journey of putting biodiversity on the agenda and at the top of the agenda,” President Ali noted.