Nearly two decades after former President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo and King Charles III, then Prince Charles, championed the economic value of tropical forests, their historic environmental partnership is entering a new chapter. King Charles is expected to visit Guyana next week for the Global Biodiversity Alliance (GBA) Summit in Georgetown, supporting President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali’s ambition to establish international financing mechanisms for biodiversity conservation.
The visit continues a vision pioneered by Dr Jagdeo, who argued that developing countries that protect vast tropical forests should receive financial compensation for the environmental benefits they provide to the world. That vision became the foundation of Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which transformed forest conservation into an important source of national development financing.
The relationship began in 2000, when Prince Charles visited Guyana’s Iwokrama rainforest and later became a patron of the international conservation centre. Their collaboration gained international prominence in September 2008, when Prince Charles publicly endorsed Dr Jagdeo’s forest conservation proposals at Mansion House in London.
Dr Jagdeo maintained that countries such as Guyana should not be forced to choose between economic development and forest conservation. While deforestation generated immediate commercial returns, standing forests provided global benefits through carbon storage, climate regulation and biodiversity protection, yet received inadequate financial compensation.
Prince Charles praised Dr Jagdeo’s leadership, describing Guyana’s proposal as a “truly innovative roadmap for national development.” His Prince’s Rainforests Project also helped facilitate a McKinsey & Company study, conducted via the Clinton Global Initiative, that examined the economic potential of Guyana’s forests.
In April 2009, Prince Charles convened discussions on tropical deforestation at the G20 Summit in London. Guyana, Norway, and Gabon participated as non-G20 countries, with then-Prime Minister Samuel Hinds representing Guyana after former President Janet Jagan’s death. The discussions helped establish a 35-country working group to examine international financing for REDD+.
Later that year, Dr Jagdeo launched Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy, making forest protection a central pillar of economic development. Guyana subsequently signed a landmark conservation agreement with Norway on the banks of the Essequibo River.
Between 2009 and 2015, Guyana received US$227 million in results-based payments from Norway. These funds supported renewable energy, climate adaptation, infrastructure, Amerindian land titling, the rehabilitation of the Cunha Canal, small businesses, and more than 200 solar-powered ICT hubs in hinterland communities.
The agreement also strengthened Guyana’s forest monitoring and verification systems, providing the technical foundation for participation in international carbon markets. Prince Charles highlighted the Guyana-Norway partnership at the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009.
Under President Ali, Guyana expanded this framework through LCDS 2030, which was finalised in 2022. In December of that year, Guyana became the first country to issue jurisdictional forest carbon credits under the internationally recognised ART-TREES standard.
The achievement was followed by a landmark agreement with Hess Corporation to purchase 37.5 million forest carbon credits, valued at least at US$750 million. Guyana’s credits subsequently became eligible under CORSIA, the international aviation carbon-offsetting scheme. Approximately 30 airlines have reportedly purchased Guyanese credits, with sales projected to reach US$100 million by the end of 2026.
Guyana also co-chairs the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership with Britain, strengthening international cooperation on conservation.
Importantly, LCDS 2030 allocates at least 15 per cent of forest-carbon revenues directly to Amerindian communities, with government figures indicating that allocations exceed 20 per cent in practice. More than 240 communities have benefited, and by mid-2026, nearly 3,000 projects have reportedly been initiated across agriculture, tourism, transport, education, infrastructure and small businesses.
Forest revenues also support drainage and irrigation programmes that make about 100,000 hectares of non-forested land available for agricultural expansion, advancing President Ali’s Caribbean food-security ambitions while protecting tropical forests.
President Ali is now extending this conservation-financing model beyond carbon via the Global Biodiversity Alliance. The initiative seeks international recognition of the economic value of ecosystems, wildlife, water resources and biodiversity, and aims to attract governments, scientists, businesses, Indigenous peoples and international organisations.
By September 2026, the alliance had attracted approximately 140 members. Its central challenge is to develop credible financing and verification systems for biodiversity, which is considerably harder to measure than carbon emissions. Transparent monitoring, scientific assessment, and fair benefit-sharing with communities will be essential.
King Charles has maintained his environmental ties with Guyana, renewing his patronage of Iwokrama in 2024. Cooperation with the King’s Foundation has expanded to include sustainable urban development. President Ali has also discussed climate change and biodiversity with the monarch.
In September 2024, President Dr Ali recognised Dr Jagdeo’s original vision and the contributions of Norway and King Charles. In April 2026, Dr Jagdeo met King Charles at Dumfries House in Scotland, nearly 18 years after their landmark environmental collaboration.
The King’s forthcoming visit, his first since 2000, coincides with Guyana’s 60th anniversary of independence and with six decades of diplomatic relations with Britain.
The occasion marks a remarkable journey from Dr Jagdeo’s pioneering forest conservation strategy to President Ali’s global biodiversity initiative. With King Charles’s longstanding support, Guyana seeks to demonstrate once again that protecting nature can create economic opportunities and secure the planet’s environmental future.