Agriculture Minister Navin Chandarpal regrets that the international community has not given due recognition to the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development (IICRCD).
Declaring open the Caribbean Biodiversity Capacity Building Workshop at the Hotel Tower yesterday morning, Chandarpal said that increasingly Guyana has to remind others that Iwokrama is one success story that has emerged since the Earth Summit in Rio, Brazil, a decade ago.
Apart from CARICOM member countries attending the workshop, Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela and Nicaragua were represented. While Barbados was not represented, its country report had been submitted.
Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Kenyan-born Harvard professor, Calestous Juma presented the keynote address while UG Vice Chancellor Dr James Rose welcomed participants. Chandarpal said that there were not many success stories around the world as a result of Rio and if the international community gave the kind of resources and recognition to the Iwokrama experiment, at least one major living laboratory could be put into effect, he said.
The developments since Rio, he said, left much to be desired. The Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) meeting which followed, he said, turned out to be a major disappointment. He noted that three years ago members of the SIDS at a United Nations special session were asked to prepare sustainable development projects and the Caribbean alone presented some 130 projects. Unfortunately, he said, very few of the projects have been given the go-ahead.
This raises the point that in adopting the regional approach to biodiversity, there was the need to utilise institutions that were already there. As a region, he said, the issue of the Caribbean Sea was taken to the UN and this was constantly under review.
In relation to biodiversity and climate change, Chandarpal said that there have been a number of steps taken such as capacity building, legislation governing biodiversity and sustainable development among other areas to improve environmental conditions around the world. However, he said that critical elements were yet to be addressed. Countries like Guyana, he said, must not be seen only for their richness in terms of preserving the environment.
Biodiversity would only have meaning for a country like Guyana if it translated into economic gains for the well-being of the people.
Apart from the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency he said that Guyana had established a national bio-diversity strategy and action plan after a long period of consultation. This included wildlife management, conservation and protected areas.
In brief remarks, Executive Secretary of CARISCIENCE, Harold Ram-kissoon, said that his organisation viewed the wider Caribbean as one of the hot spots in biodiversity. He pledged CARISCIENCE's support and to help seek funding for any plan of action that would make a positive impact on regional development and that emerges from the workshop. In brief remarks, UNDP Deputy Resident Represen-tative, Dr Thomas Gass, said that Latin America and Caribbean region was custodian to the world's biodiversity. He said that the region needed to say this to the world, but it would only be credible if the region was an excellent custodian of this biodiversity.