Iwokrama Centre for International Rain Forest Conservation and Development Guyana, South America

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Iwokrama Centre for International Rain Forest
Conservation and DevelopmentGuyana, South
America
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To promote the conservation and the
sustainable and equitable use of tropical rain
forests in a manner that will lead to lasting
ecological, economic, and social benefits to the
people of Guyana and to the world in general, by
undertaking research, training and the
development and dissemination of technologies.
IWOKRAMAS MISSION STATEMENT
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About Iwokrama .

• Makushi (local tribe) word meaning place of
  refuge
• A gift from Guyana to the International Community
  in 1989
• Iwokrama International Centre was formed in 1996
• 1M acres (371,000 ha)
• 50 Wilderness Preserve (WP)
• 50 Sustainable Utilization Area (SUA)
• Management of the area is under the direct
  control of the Chief Executive Officer who
  reports to the Iwokrama International Board of
  Trustees
• Government of Guyana has representatives on the
  board

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An international effort.
HRH Prince of Wales Patron
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GUYANA
IWOKRAMA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE

• IWOKRAMA RESERVE..the Green Heart of Guyana

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The Iwokrama Reserve
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Core work programmes

• Conservation and use of forests and biodiversity
• Business development
• Sustainable timber
• Sustainable tourism
• Training and consultancy services
• Intellectual property and services
• Human resource development

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Business Development

• Timber
• Tourism
• Training Services
• Intellectual Property and Services

• Commercial Partners
• Tigerwood Guyana Inc - Timber
• Community and Tourism Services Inc - Tourism
• KfW - Training C

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Iwokrama River Lodge and Science Centre
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Timber

• SFM timber model which follows environmental,
  social and economic best practices
• Innovative Governance models - Private Sector /
  Iwokrama /Communities
• FSC Certification
• No log export policy adopted

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Sustainable Ecotourism

• Birding - Recently, Iwokrama was highly praised
  by an independent USAID report which said that
  Iwokrama is one of the most, if not the single
  most important site for birding and nature
  tourism in Guyana.
• Canopy walkway
• Turtle Mountain
• Hiking
• Caiman spotting
• 1,450 visitors in 2007 up
• from 760 in 2006

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Community Relations

• Collaborative Management Agreements
• Training / Capacity building programmes
• Benefits sharing arrangements
• Innovative governance models
• Employment 96 of staff from local communities

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Training Services

• Full training facilities
• Ranger training
• Guide training,
• Protected area management
• Collaborative management.
• Other specialized training courses
• PDF Programmes

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Intellectual Property Services

• EU GSI project IUCN
• Environmental services
• Merchandising and value adding

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Ecosystem Services

• Rainforests are giant global utilities providing
  water, pollination, soil erosion prevention,
  recreation etc important to climate regulation
  and agriculture (food security) important
  services to humanity.
• Values have mostly not been recognised, valuation
  systems not perfected and markets not developed
• ESS add value to existing forest values timber,
  NTFPs etc and reinforces the value of standing
  rainforests
• More important to the developing world which have
  characteristics of high forest cover, low
  population and economic challenges thus putting
  immense pressure on these governments to monetize
  forest resources through the sale of traditional
  forest values such as timber often leading to
  forest degradation

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Iwokrama / Canopy Capital Deal

• Partner Canopy Capital of the UK
• Launched at the worlds first Finance and
  Biodiversity Conference in New York on the
  27th-28th March, 2008.
• Not an emissions based arrangement as Iwokrama is
  already a protected area and would not qualify
• Innovative agreement between private sector and
  NGO involved in sustainable development in an
  attempt to show that you can use a forest with
  out losing it through valuation creation using
  ESS
• Two-staged process a) identification and
  valuation of ESS b) commercialization and market
  development

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Basic tenets of the agreement

• 5 year agreement
• Gives Canopy Capital a license to market ESS in
  the Iwokrama Forest over the period in order to
  explore sources of international funding
• Provides payments to the Iwokrama Centre for this
  license
• Contains adequate termination clauses to protect
  both parties
• Centre has the right of veto for which types of
  ESS can be marketed
• Does not include the transfer of rights or
  ownership to any part of the Iwokrama Forest
• Contains clauses which ensure a fair share of
  benefits so that all parties including local
  communities get a fair share of the proceeds of
  any commercial earnings
• All activities have to fall within the confines
  of the Iwokrama Act
• Fits within the framework of the Guyana
  Government with whom we continue to work closely
  with in this regard

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Iwokrama as the testbed.

• Iwokrama Forest Zoned into Sustainable
  Utilization Area (SUA) and Wilderness Preserve
  (WP)
• Iwokrama Forest FSC certified indicating
  operations which follow social, environmental and
  economic best practices, the only institution in
  the Guyana shield to have achieved this status
• Iwokrama already involved in model development of
  timber tourism and training businesses including
  innovative governance models
• Traditional forest resources mapped
• Management plans / inventories developed for
  traditional resources
• Monitoring protocols in place
• History of research activities
• Local communities involved in all facets of
  Iwokramas work

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Stage 1 Identification of ESS

• Research into various ESS water, pollination,
  soil erosion protection etc contained in the
  Iwokrama Forest.
• Measuring services water rainfall attraction,
  water stored in the forest, run off into the
  rivers etc
• Determining economic values of these services

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Stage 2 Commercialization

• Fitting into any national framework / policy
  governing these services
• Developing market mechanisms to ensure that
  resource / service providers / owners are
  compensated by beneficiaries of these services
• Ensuring that forest peoples / local communities
  and other stakeholders share equitably in the
  benefits

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Major challenges

• Getting people / companies / countries to pay for
  another service in a declining world economy
  where resources are already over-committed to
  offset rising fuel prices, fight poverty,
  mitigate natural disasters, combat terrorism and
  deal with the effects of civil wars
• Convincing owners of forest resources that over
  the short to medium terms ESS could be a viable
  alternative to revenues derived from extractive
  operations
• Developing appropriate valuation models for
  services, some of which are intangible
• Developing innovative financial models such as
  green bonds to help finance PES

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Benefits

• International model of increasing the value of
  and revenues from standing forests thus leading
  to reduced deforestation and mitigating the
  effects of climate change and the development of
  innovative financial mechanisms to fund such
  efforts
• National Economic development for Guyana whilst
  still maintaining its 78 (16M ha) forest cover,
  economic benefits for forest peoples / local
  communities
• Iwokrama provides direct economic benefits to
  the Centre to continue its important work in
  conservation and sustainable development

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To learn more about us.

• Visit our website www.iwokrama.org
• Visit the Iwokrama Forest
• Contact me at
• Dane Gobin BSc MBA
• Chief Executive Officer
• Iwokrama international Centre
• 77 High Street, Kingston Georgetown
• Tel [phone]
• Fax [phone]