Only way to preserve forest is to address alternative use, tackle drivers of deforestation -President Jagdeo during panel discussion on investing in world’s forests

The singular way to preserve forest in the long -term is to address its alternative use and tackle the drivers of deforestation, which means that alternative use has to be outcompeted, Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo told a panel discussion today, hence Guyana’s move to recreate a model around it.
President Jagdeo, in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly Meeting was one of five participants discussing, ‘Investing in the world’s forests’, hosted by the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), a premier gathering for heads of state, business leaders, and nonprofit directors from around the world. The CGI 2010 meeting took place from September 21-23.


President Bharrat Jagdeo , one of five participants on a panel discussing :Investing in the world’s forests , at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting, New York , September 23 .

The panel was moderated John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for American Progress and the other participants were: Wangari Maathai, Founder and Chair, The Green Belt Movement Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, Minister and Head, Presidential Unit for Development, Monitoring and Evaluation, Government of Indonesia, Jakarta; Jonathan Pershing, Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change, U.S. Department of State; and Kevin Rudd, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Australia.
“Some years ago we said that we are prepared to put our entire forest in long-term protection if the right incentives could be found, so what we did was to get McKinsey & Company to come in and work with us to put a value to the forest, if we converted the lands to alternative use how much money could we raise every year, and we said if the world were to compensate Guyana at somewhere around that level then we can out compete alternative use for forest and that is the only way we would save forest in the long- term,” President Jagdeo stated.



In responding to moderator Podesta’s question on what are some of the pressures Guyana faces to tear the forest down and to use it for agricultural purposes and how has the Head of State been able to sustain the political momentum to stay on track for what he wants to do, President Jagdeo responded:
“We have many companies that want to come into Guyana and cut the trees down, they would love to have leases but we have to say no to them .There are many people who for subsistence reasons want to cut the trees down; there are those pressures but what has happened? Copenhagen was a disappointment because of the low and less than ambitious targets agreed and there is no offset market for forest Carbon, it is impossible to do and now everyone is saying oh we have a financial crisis so we don’t have public money so if you have limited public money and you cannot get the money from the market so how are we going to generate enough money to out compete the alternative sources?”
He explained that Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which has seen over 300 consultations, had the indigenous people integrally involved, and the multi stakeholder committee which he chairs meets every week. Additionally Guyana’s Parliament has accepted the LCDS.
However, he questioned whether the international community is ready to keep its part of the bargain and went on to explain that, “it’s mathematically impossible to achieve a two degree target without including forest as part of an abatement solution. The economics is clear, Lord Stern and so many others have done this work; it’s the most cost effective solution, so if we cannot fund the most cost effective, the cheapest of abatement, so how are we going to fund the other abatement solutions? Everyone agreed that this is a low hanging fruit, to define, to deploy renewable energy, or retrofit building or to come up with vehicle emission standard which are all part of the solution years down the line so this could happen now yet we don’t have the resources and somehow in the developed world there is a feeling that only developed countries have political capital to squander,” he noted.
The panelists addressed the role that forests play in sequestering carbon, and the work that needs to be done to empower local populations to earn a living from forests while protecting them at the same time.