Conservation being sidelined by other priorities
-warns UNDP official
Stabroek News
November 23, 2003
UNDP Deputy Resident Representative Thomas Gass says priorities for funding for environmental projects have ebbed recently in part because of other development de-mands including the HIV/ AIDS pandemic and international security.
This is forcing organisations, including the rainforest reserve, Iwokrama, to ensure that the economic use of the natural resources would actually pay for their conservation.
Speaking at the recent launch of a Guiana Shield Conservation Priority setting report, Gass said local stakeholders needed to set the priorities again and remind governments and donors and the international community, that Guyana had an important asset in Iwokrama and that it needed to be maintained. However, he said that it has first had to be used for the benefit of the country then the international community.
Meanwhile the international insurance industry is now showing a keen interest in conserving rainforests as it sees these as contributing to ecological stability which in turn means less natural disasters.
Head of the Guiana Shield Initiative, Wouter Veening, noted that at a recent meeting in Switzerland, it was suggested to a big reinsurance company that the Guiana Shield, comprising 2.5 m sq km of often uninterrupted pristine forest, was extremely important for the global climate.
He said the big reinsurance companies were interested in preserving ecological stability because they could not reinsure insurance companies anymore to pay for the damages and liabilities caused by natural and environmental disasters such as pollution, deforestation and climate change in general.
Executive Director of Conservation International (Guyana) Major General (rtd) Joe Singh, at a luncheon during the workshop said the data contained in the 99-page report on the Guiana Shield project must be used for the purposes intended and not left idle. The report is contained in the Paramaribo Declaration which was endorsed by the workshop participants and signed by then United Nations Development Programme Resident Representative to Guyana, Richard Olver and President of Conservation International, Russell Mitter-meier.
Veening noted there was a possibility that the countries of the Guiana Shield, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Suriname, French Guiana and Guyana could work together to manage the eco-region as a whole by sharing information.
Co-ordinator of the Protected Areas Secretariat, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ramesh Lilwah noted that the EPA and the Guyana Government were pleased to be part of the priority setting workshop held in Suriname in April 2002. Guyana was also represented by a team of experts which included the Lands and Surveys Department, the Guyana Forestry Commission, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, the University of Guyana, the North Rupununi District Development Board and Conservation International (Guyana).