From pledges to payment: GBA’s 140-plus members meet in Georgetown to finance nature
Fifteen months after launching the Global Biodiversity Alliance (GBA) with 17 founding members, Guyana now leads a coalition of more than 140. This week, the Alliance meets for the second time and will ask those members to put money behind their commitments.
The Global Biodiversity Alliance Conference opens Friday, October 30, at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), Liliendaal, under the theme “Investing in Nature: Accelerating Biodiversity Finance for Sustainable Development.”
The two-day meeting will focus on the investment mechanisms and public policies needed to fund conservation into biodiversity-rich countries.
When President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali launched the Alliance in July 2025, its 17 founding members included governments, civil society, indigenous peoples, local organisations and private entities. Membership reached 97 in May when the United Nations (UN) joined.
President Ali said the UN’s entry showed that protecting biodiversity is “now central to the international agenda.” Trinidad and Tobago became the 135th member in July. The United Kingdom (UK) joined in January, and India is expected to follow.
Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, who first proposed paying Guyana to keep its forests standing, will lead an open plenary on Friday titles “The Guyana Story: Creating a Model for the World.”
That model has a track record. Between 2009 and 2015, Guyana earned US$227 million in results-based payments from Norway. In November 2022, it became the first country to issue jurisdictional forest carbon credits under the ART-TREES standard. Days later, it signed an agreement with Hess for 37.5 million credits, worth at least US$750 million.
Under LCDS 2030, at least 15 per cent of forest carbon revenues go directly to Amerindian villages.
GBA now takes that approach beyond carbon. Director of Climate and REDD+ at the Ministry of Natural Resources, Pradeepa Bholanath said the alliance lets Guyana “expand the focus from forest carbon services to now biodiversity-related services.”
Options on the table include blended finance, green and biodiversity bonds, carbon and biodiversity markets, and multilateral funding.
The conference is part of Guyana Nature and Biodiversity Finance Week. It coincides with the state visit of His Majesty King Charles III, whose programme includes meeting scientists, indigenous community members and innovators working on biodiversity, conservation and restoration.
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