(L-R) Shurland Davis, Field Technician, North Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB); Jon Parsons, Technical Lead, Global Canopy Program; Yuyan Kurniawan, Forest Management Coordinator, WWF Indonesia; Naikoa Amuchastegui, MRV Coordinator, WWF Global Forest and Climate Network; Pradeepa Bholanath, Head, Planning and Development, Guyana Forestry Commission; Robert Persaud, Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment; Dr Patrick Williams, Country Manager, WWF GuyanaGEORGETOWN, Guyana -- A south-south international exchange workshop on community measurement, reporting, and verification (CMRV) was hosted in Guyana from August 22 to 28, 2014, to share lessons amongst practitioners from around the world.
The workshop was organized through a collaboration of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Guianas, WWF’s Forest Carbon Program (FCP), the Global Canopy Programme (GCP), and the Global Forest Observation Initiative’s Silva Carbon Program. The workshop was held at Roraima’s Arrow Point Resort, where the participants had easy access to forests in which to demonstrate the innovative techniques and equipment being shared.
Guyana was selected as the site for the workshop due to its leadership role as the first country in the world with a functioning national-scale measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) system and a pair of model CMRV projects. One of those projects developed CMRV systems in the 16 communities of the North Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB) through a collaboration with the UK-based GCP and the Iwokrama International Centre.
In the second project, the Wai Wai community of Kanashen is being trained by the NRDDB to develop their own CMRV capacity, under a project initiated by WWF Guyana. Both projects are funded by NORAD, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.
CMRV is a component of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation -- the initiative to pay high forest countries to maintain low deforestation rates that has been championed by Guyana). Through CMRV, communities with titled lands establish systems to monitor their own resources – including forest cover and carbon content, but also other resources that are important to them, often including water quality, biodiversity, fish and wildlife stocks, timber and non-timber forest products, and criteria to measure community well-being.
Participants came from a wide range of countries including Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Nepal, the United States, Great Britain, Austria, and Holland. Guyanese participants represented the Guyana Forestry Commission, WWF Guyana, the NRDDB, and Iwokrama.