By Climate & Economy Desk | GEORGETOWN, 24 July 2025

Rows of international flags flanked the Arthur Chung Conference Centre as Guyana opened the inaugural Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit. President Irfaan Ali set the tone with a startling figure: standing forests deliver more than US $15.2 billion in annual ecosystem services for Guyana. Peer‑reviewed modelling by Yale University and Conservation International underpinned the claim, reframing rain‑forests not as cost centres but as profit engines and giving delegates a concrete number to rally around.

Ali told attendees that Guyana’s Low‑Carbon Development Strategy had already proven carbon credits viable; the next step is to monetise biodiversity itself through credits, blue bonds and debt‑for‑nature swaps linked to everything from mangrove buffers to pollinator diversity. A concept note circulated before the summit outlined the government’s ambitions: legal protection for another eighteen million hectares of land and sea, the launch of a “Gross Biodiversity Power Index,” the issue of a US $250 million sovereign blue bond, two hundred village‑level conservation grants and a public dashboard to track every target.

White‑papers tabled at the meeting broke down the US $15.2 billion valuation, tallying avoided flood damage, carbon storage, water filtration, pollination and recreation. Presidential adviser Vikram Bhagwandin called the figure a lever for softer sovereign‑debt terms, while economist Dr Reena Singh estimated that securitising even five percent of those services could raise roughly US $750 million a year—comparable to early‑stage oil royalties but far more sustainable.

Guyana cemented its scientific credentials by signing a memorandum of understanding with the Yale Center for Biodiversity & Global Change. The pact covers bio‑acoustic monitoring, AI‑based species mapping and joint PhD fellowships. Yale’s Dr Alexander Killion praised Guyana as a living laboratory with a government eager to turn data into policy. Indigenous leaders welcomed a commitment that ten percent of biodiversity‑credit revenue will flow directly to village councils, arguing that traditional knowledge must earn more than a footnote in official documents.

Politically, the timing matters. With general elections six weeks away, polls show climate action ranks as “important” or “very important” for sixty‑one percent of undecided voters, up fourteen points since 2022. Communications strategist Christopher Nascimento said Ali’s speech fused ecological virtue with economic pragmatism, boxing in an opposition that has yet to publish its own nature‑finance plan. Skeptics remain: opposition MP David Patterson warned of “valuation theatre,” and Transparency International requested parliamentary oversight of any future bond issues. Finance Minister Ashni Singh replied that every instrument will undergo IMF‑style debt‑sustainability tests and Auditor‑General audits.

The next three months will show whether talk turns to traction. By today the summit is expected to adopt the Georgetown Declaration and establish the GBA secretariat. Draft legislation for a biodiversity‑credit registry is due before Cabinet on 31 July, baseline audits begin in the North Rupununi and Pomeroon on 15 August, and a blue‑bond term sheet heads to Parliament’s Economic Services Committee by 30 September. International lenders are already circling: the Caribbean Development Bank signalled its willingness to structure concessionary loans tied to verified biodiversity outcomes, and the Inter‑American Development Bank hinted at a US $50 million technical‑assistance facility for Amazon neighbours wanting to copy Guyana’s model.

Whether biodiversity becomes the country’s next big export or stalls in red tape will depend on rigorous science, airtight governance and investor appetite. For now, PPP/C can point to a headline number, a Yale signature and a packed summit hall as proof that its green vision is more than campaign rhetoric.