Future of Iwokrama under threa-- Guyana tells UN General Assembly

Guyana Chronicle Top Story, 03 October 2007-10-03

http://www.guyanachronicle.com/topstory.html#Anchor---------40419
Future of Iwokrama under threat
-- Guyana tells UN General Assembly
`The battle against climate change cannot be won unless a truly global
effort is made to save the planet' - Foreign Minister Rudy Insanally

FOREIGN Minister Rudy Insanally yesterday informed the United Nations
General Assembly in New York that Guyana's ambitious Iwokrama Rainforest
Centre for Conservation and Development is threatened because international
financial support is drying up.
He said Guyana fully understood and responded to the challenges of climate
change more than a decade ago when it made almost one million acres of its
pristine forest in the Iwokrama region in the south for study of
bio-diversity and sustainable development.
He said that while international financial support for the Iwokrama project
has "become increasingly scarce", the Kyoto Protocol "quite perversely"
rewards "those who burn and pillage their resources but punish others like
Guyana who are committed to preserving their standing forests."
"This inequity should no longer be tolerated", Insanally declared and said
any post-Kyoto Agreement must be endowed with the resources necessary for
its full implementation.
He said development assistance statistics have shown a "marked diminution in
levels from past years with little promise of any additional or new
financing needed for environment-related projects."
Insanally suggested a `Partnership of Additonality' which, in return for a
commitment by countries to the preservation of the environment, will provide
"adequate and predictable" financing to allow them to pursue a path of
accelerated and sustainable development.
"It is high time to honour the commitments given at the Monterrey Conference
on the financing of development", he declared.
The Guyana Foreign Minister told the UN General Assembly in New York that
the disastrous flood which hit the Guyana coast in 2005 "impels us to renew
our call for the strengthening of multilateral facilities to provide all
victims of such natural disasters with prompt and adequate relief."
"We have also been alarmed by a recent report of the United Nations Panel on
Climate Change which warns against the disastrous effects that global
warming is likely to have on our hemisphere, including the probable collapse
of the Amazon eco-system within forty years and increased tropical storms in
the Caribbean."
Insanally said Guyana has accordingly formulated an ambitious energy policy
"aimed at reducing the country's reliance on fossil fuels and developing
alternative possibilities such as sugar based ethanol and hydro-power."
"Equally important", he said, "we are committed to a sensible policy of
conservation through good practices and the use of energy-saving
techniques."
"In these various ways we hope to play a meaningful part in the campaign to
preserve the earth from the ravages of climate change..."
"The battle against climate change cannot be won unless a truly global
effort is made to save the planet", he urged.