Grant aid for sustainable forest, gold ops signed

http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article?id=56531657

Grant aid for sustainable forest, gold ops signed
Stabroek News, Wednesday, October 24th 2007

WWF Guianas yesterday launched the second phase of its regional
environmental project entitled Guianas Sus-tainable Natural Resources
Management Project and signed four grant agreements in the total amount
of $86.14M.

The event took place at the Grand Coastal Inn on the East Coast of
Demerara.

The agencies receiving the grants were the Guyana Forestry Commission
(GFC), the Hydrometeorological Ser-vice of the Ministry of Agri-culture
and the Guyana Geo-logy and Mines Commission (GGMC).

These grants represent the first in a number of collaborative financial
and technical arrangements that the WWF is seeking to embark upon for
the environmental sector in Guyana.

The Phase II project covers the period of 2007 to 2011 and has a budget
of 6.46M euros funded by the Dutch Directorate General for
International Cooperation (DGIS), Fonds Francais Pour l'Environment
Mondial (FFEM) and WWF-Nether-lands. The primary conservation focus of
this project phase is on sustainable forest management, protected areas
management, freshwater species conservation and gold mining pollution
abatement in Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.

Two grants totalling $40.3M have been allocated to the GFC and one of
them is intended to be used for enhancing sustainable forest management
in Guyana by encouraging improved practices, education and awareness in
key forestry areas, institutional strengthening and conducting
monitoring and research activities.

The second is aimed at strengthening and enforcing forest management
regulations and improving the application of sustainable management
practices in the Kwebanna and Batavia community forests.

The allocation to the GGMC is in the sum of $30M and is intended to
complement ongoing efforts to reduce the pressure exerted on priority
ecosystems in mining areas by promoting best practices and supporting
and strengthening relevant institutions for improved management of the
sub sector. In addition efforts will be made to foster the development,
adoption and enforcement of practical and environmentally sound
policies and regulations for the gold mining sub-sector and
simultaneously bridge gaps that exist in the organisation's attempts to
minimise the impact of gold mining on the physical and human
environment.

The funding for Hydromet amounts to $15.84M and is aimed at
establishing a network of partnerships among stakeholders for effective
freshwater resources management, enhancing the technical capability of
Hydromet personnel to assess and monitor freshwater resources in Guyana
and providing infrastructure to support the assessment and monitoring
freshwater resources.

Speaking at the signing, Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud said
that it is important that there be promotion, education and
sensitisation at all levels, of guidelines that the GFC, the GGMC and
Hydromet have. And he said that there should be adequate monitoring to
ensure that there is implementation of the guidelines or application of
penalties and corrective action when breaches are identified.

He said that his ministry will do the checks and the WWF Guianas team
will monitor the progress of the proposed activities under the grants
to ensure that Guyana meets its obligations.