Guyana’s ecosystem services worth over US$15.2 billion a year – President Ali

Rigorous, credible evidence shows that Guyana’s ecosystem services are worth over US$15.2 billion a year, President Irfaan Ali said Wednesday, as he issued a rallying cry for governments, institutions, investors, communities, and citizens, to invest in nature for planet earth’s survival.

“The forests of Guyana—not being cleared, not being sold, not being converted—are providing more economic value by standing than they would if destroyed,” President Ali said as he opened the Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit in Georgetown.

Across the globe, biodiversity is under siege, the President said, “and we are approaching irreversible tipping points in key ecosystems—from coral reefs to savannahs to rainforests.”

These changes, he said, are not remote or abstract but real, immediate, and devastating.

“They affect the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe. They affect our jobs, our health, our economies, our culture, our peace. They affect our very survival,” the President stated.

But yet, he said the destruction continues, not due to ignorance, but due to invisibility.

“Because too often, the true value of biodiversity is ignored in national accounts, absent from financial statements, and invisible in boardrooms and budget plans,” he stated.

It’s that invisibility that the Global Biodiversity Alliance seeks to end.

Thanks to McKinsey & Company and Conservation International, Guyana now has the results of groundbreaking valuation work.

Their analysis reveals this:

• Guyana provides the world over US$15.2 billion per year in ecosystem services
• An overwhelming 96% 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

This, the President said, is the very essence of a nature-positive economy.

And this value is not unique to Guyana, the President said, is echoed in every forest, reef, wetland, savannah, and mountain on earth.

Today, he said, just $200 billion per year is invested in nature, but to meet the Global Biodiversity Framework targets, at least $700 billion is needed 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,” the President stated.

The Global Biodiversity Alliance aims to prioritise this. The Alliance is 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.
• Supporting community-driven finance models that place Indigenous leadership at the centre.

“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.”