Iwokrama in revolutionary carbon deal
-one million acres to be valued
Stabroek News, Thursday, March 27th 2008
The Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development is to announce a revolutionary deal in New York today that will see a financial value being assigned to the climate services it provides.
The UK's Independent newspaper reported last night that the deal with Canopy Capital will be unveiled today. Iwokrama had previously indicated here that a carbon credits deal had been under discussion with a UK company. Iwokrama officials could not be contacted last night for further information.
The Independent said that the deal "will place a financial value on rainforests - paying, for the first time, for their upkeep as `utilities' that provide vital services such as rainfall generation, carbon storage and climate regulation."
Since its conception in 1989, Iwokrama has struggled to stay financially viable but the recent global momentum towards valuing standing forests for their climate services has given it a new lease on life. The deal comes in the wake of an offer by President Bharrat Jagdeo of almost all of Guyana's forests in the battle against climate change. He made the offer here last year at a meeting of Commonwealth Finance Ministers.
Hylton Murray-Philipson, director of the London-based financiers Canopy Capital, who sealed the deal with the Iwokrama rainforest, told the Independent: "How can it be that Google's services are worth billions but those from all the world's rainforests amount to nothing?"
"Forests do much more for us than just store carbon ... This first significant step is in keeping with President Jagdeo's visionary approach to safeguarding all the forests of Guyana," Iwokrama's chairman and former UK High Commissioner to Guyana, Edward Glover told the Independent.
The deal, drawn up by the international firm Stephenson Harwood, is the first serious attempt to pay for the ecosystem services provided by rainforests, the report said.
Guyana's attempt to secure its entire standing forest has received the backing of the British environment minister Phil Woolas. According to the report, Down-ing Street has told The Independent that it is "considering the offer". President Jagdeo met with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the fringes of the re-cent Commonwealth Summit in Uganda where they discussed the proposal.
The Iwokrama project arose out of an offer in 1989 by then President Desmond Hoyte at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to have a million acres of virgin forests in the centre of Guyana set aside for sustainable forestry studies.
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