I feel really proud to know that our little developing country has made an impact on the issue of forest conservation, and by extension climate change, following President Jagdeo’s aggressive lobby last year that countries like Guyana, which do not cut down their rainforest, should be rewarded.

Guyana, true to the cause, donated one million acres of untouched rainforest (Iwokrama) to the Commonwealth to be managed on a sustainable basis. Iwokrama recently announced that for the first time, “investors will pay for the ecosystem services produced by a rainforest, including rainfall generation, climate regulation, biodiversity maintenance and water storage-utilities with global significance which are vanishing as forests fall.”

Guyana’s importance in these overall conservation efforts must be underscored, as it is one of only four intact rainforests remaining! It also needs to be said here that many countries are guilty of denuding their forests and this has been seen to be having a negative impact on them.

I felt vindicated that what has been said before is proving true — that our rainforest is priceless. I read what the director of Canopy Capital, the company that signed the rainforest conservation deal in New York, said when he asked: How could Google’s services be worth billions, and rainforests nothing???
Jada Mukerjee