We worked with Conservation International – Guyana (CI-Guyana) to produce a joint strategy for the conservation and sustainable development of Guyana’s Rupununi landscape which covers 5M hectares. The strategy defines priority interventions and supports coordination of our actions to develop and implement sustainable models for local and regional conservation and development in the Rupununi Region. The intention is to have a Rupununi sustainable landscape strategy with full stakeholders’ participation. As part of the implementation of this strategy we, Strengthened the capacity of community-based organizations for resource monitoring and management (fire and water);
Developed final draft of stakeholder engagement guidelines for governance - centred in a rightsbased approach, bringing clarity on how and when communities want to be engaged, transparency and inclusion of vulnerable groups in important decisionmaking processes. They also help to define the expectations and commitments, beyond Free Prior Informed Consent (FIPC) to ensure effective engagement.
In Suriname WWF established a formal partnership with Stichting voor Bosbeheer en Bostoezicht1 (SBB) and Natuurbeheer2 (NB) in March , and began implementation of a joint workplan for an Early Warning System (EWS) pilot comprising three pilot sites and validation of data between partners. This is the first of such predictive monitoring in the Guianas and is a significant step in building the capacity at the state institutional level and to use technology to improve efficiency in forest monitoring. Through the support of the WWF Network's EWS Team, we have refined and tailored the system to be applicable to Suriname’s systems of natural resource management. A Dashboard has been designed with partner agencies and is currently being used in the pilot. We are particularly proud of this achievement as it has resulted in a model that is truly applicable to the Surinamese context and useful to more than one organisation and agency. The dashboard model has also presented opportunities to integrate with and enhance existing national platforms and systems in place.
A collaboration effort was initiated, between WWF, academia (ADeKUS) and NGOs (ACT, NeoWild) to work towards the development of a National Jaguar Strategy. This has led to the development of a National Jaguar monitoring survey project that will be executed in 6 pilot sites across the jaguar corridor in Suriname. It is expected that this monitoring survey will be the first of its kind in Suriname bringing together local experts, using a common methodology and approach. It is expected that this survey will provide baseline data to be used to inform the national Jaguar strategy hoped to be developed.
The national jaguar monitoring promotes the participation of local communities where we have been able to receive formal agreement to participated from the communities located in the Deep South (Curuni and Sipaliwini). These communities are most critical for the pilot implementation phase of the project. In June 2020 interest was shown by Panthera/CI to join in the efforts to support this national jaguar monitoring, where additional equipment and expertise were offered to support this monitoring. It is expected that an MOU will be signed in 2022 between WWF and Panthera and ADeKUS and Panthera respectively to facilitate this added support.
The rapid growth in the oil and gas sector in Guyana has not been matched by the development of a suitable regulatory framework that would ensure that the rights and interests of people are protected, or which would help mitigate the impacts on the environment. The environmental and social safeguards framework that was being used by the Guyana EPA were outdated and did not address oil and gas and were far removed from international standards. We worked with the EPA to develop an entirely new set of guidelines which were released in April 2021. Citizens now view these guidelines as the principle means by which they can hold the oil and gas sector accountable, and they have become a fulcrum around which to organise. The value of WWF was particularly evident in this situation as by virtue of our association, these guidelines are held to be valuable and necessary for regulation of the industry.
