Guyana new institutional host of Guiana Shield Facility and Fund

DPI, GUYANA, Friday, March 9, 2018

The Government of Guyana is the new institutional host of the Guiana Shield Facility and the Guiana Shield Fund.

This announcement was made today by State Minister, Joseph Harmon, who said that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) local office held responsibility for the Guiana Shield Facility and Fund up to December 31, 2017.

The initiative was started in the year 2000.

The Guiana Shield Facility is a multi-donor facility for the long-term financing of national and regional activities to conserve the eco-systems, protect bio-diversity and sustain human livelihood within the Guiana Shield eco-region.

The Fund supports the global significance of the Guiana eco-region and will facilitate the financial transfers from international organisations and those responsible for maintaining the ecological and cultural integrity of the Guiana Shield.

Guyana in accepting this position, the Minister said, “is now positioning itself as the major global player in this regard.”

Covering 270 million hectares, the Guiana Shield encompasses Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Venezuela and small parts of Colombia and northern Brazil.

The more than two-billion-year-old geological formation represents 18 percent of the world’s tropical forest carbon and 20 percent of the world’s fresh water allowing it to capture large quantities of carbon dioxide.

President David Granger on many occasions has stressed that the Shield is not only essential to enriching and replenishing the world’s biodiversity but consequently the planet’s survival.

 

By: Stacy Carmichael