In underscoring the importance of nature to the earth’s survival, President Dr Irfaan Ali has disclosed that Guyana’s rich ecosystem has an estimated value of more than $15.2 billion per year.
He made this revelation at the inaugural Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit being held in Georgetown over the next two days.
According to the Head of State, McKinsey and Company along with Conservation International recently did groundbreaking valuation work to come up with rigorous and credible evidence that determined the worth of Guyana’s biodiversity resources.
“Their analysis tells us that Guyana’s ecosystems provide over $15.2 billion per year in ecosystem services. An overwhelming 96 per cent of that value comes from non-market services—those invisible benefits we all rely on but never pay for.”
“Genetic resources alone – from plant compounds with medicinal potential to unique species traits – are worth $8.4 billion annually. Existence and bequest values, what our people are willing to pay to preserve nature, amount to $3.6 billion per year. Think about that,” Ali posited.
According to the Head of State, Guyana’s standing forest is providing more economic value than it would have, if destroyed.
Despite this intrinsic value, however, Ali pointed out that biodiversity still remains grossly underfunded.
“Today, we invest just $200 billion per year in nature. But to meet the Global Biodiversity Framework targets, we need at least $700 billion annually. That means we must more than triple global finance for nature. And we must ensure that this finance flows to where it is most needed—especially in the Global South,” he stated.
To this end, President Ali is hoping that this lack of funding is something that can be addressed at the ongoing Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit in Georgetown.
“The Global Biodiversity Alliance will prioritize this. We are committed to: scaling blended finance to de-risk investment in nature-based enterprises; piloting biodiversity credits that reward stewardship; expanding debt-for-nature swaps, modeled on our own experience, and supporting community-driven finance models that place Indigenous leadership at the centre,” he noted.
The Guyanese Leader added, “We invite development banks, asset managers, impact investors, and sovereign wealth funds to join us. Because financing nature is not charity—it is insurance. It is resilience. It is return on investment.”
Guyana has already secured a spot at the roundtable later this year at COP30, which is being held in neighbouring Brazil and where the outcomes of the inaugural Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit will be presented to advance work and mobilise funding.
In fact, President Ali revealed that only Tuesday he had “fruitful discussions” with the Chair of the business end of COP – the private sector arm of COP30.
On Thursday, July 24, the President of COP Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago, will be in Georgetown to deliver remarks at Day Two of the summit, focusing on the Road to Belém and exploring how international cooperation—through platforms like the Global Biodiversity Alliance—can accelerate momentum, overcome challenges, and align efforts with the upcoming UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP).
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