Guiana Shield platform launched

The Guiana Shield Priority Setting Platform (GSPSP) has been launched in Guyana, and will help countries within the Guiana Shield eco-region, through satellite images, to focus on issues to save the Amazon forest. The countries will work through biodiversity, conservation initiatives, ecosystem services, socioeconomics and natural resources.

Saving the Amazon forest is a priority of the countries within the Guiana Shield, and the launch of the GSPSP aims at focusing on issues to manage the forests and also in the interest of individual nations.

At the launch, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Robert Persaud noted that nationally, the facility has allowed Guyana to move forward as a country, and it also offers support to neighbours. In addition, it helps to determine how to develop a national monitoring report and interpretation system. He noted too that the facility presented an opportunity to have inter-governmental and interagency cooperation, which, owing to historical and other pressing realities, would not have been possible without it.

The GSPSP was launched on Tuesday during a reception, held by United Nations Resident Representative Khadija Musa.

The GSPSP uses a combination of new continuous satellite observation techniques and ground information to advance transparency in ecosystem services provision and natural capital accounting. It is also a functional multi-stakeholder database that links information on biodiversity, conservation initiatives, ecosystem services, socioeconomics, natural resources, and development. Representatives who were present for the launch came from countries which included Brazil, Columbia, Suriname and Venezuela.

Forest management

While the facility has allowed countries to focus on this important priority, it will also allow Guyana to manage its forest in particular.  Since the countries share a common eco-region, the GSPSP will show what happens in different territories has an impact on what happens in others. This interdependence was brought out as a result of the functionality of the Guiana Shield Facility.

Protecting biodiversity

Meanwhile, UN Representative Musa noted that in terms of the biodiversity work done, the Guiana Shield has achieved a lot. Musa noted that the purpose of the workshop was to begin the drafting of the next phase to set the Guiana Shield Facility into the future.