King Charles III urges countries to follow Guyana’s lead in protecting forests

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — King Charles III urged more countries to value nature during a visit to Guyana on Friday, praising its efforts to protect its vast forests while generating millions of dollars from carbon credit sales.

Charles said finding ways to value nature remained a challenge.

“Everybody argues about how much. Well, it’s priceless. That’s the answer,” he said during a meeting with President Irfaan Ali in Georgetown, the capital.

The British monarch condemned what he described as endless deforestation, warning that it was “totally prejudicing our future and other people’s futures, and our health.”

“Nature has the best solutions to everything, really,” he said.

Charles arrived in Guyana on Thursday as part of a nine-day Caribbean tour . He first visited the Bahamas and is scheduled to arrive in Antigua on Friday evening ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

Ali praised Charles’ leadership on nature, climate and the environment, and his support for a low-carbon development strategy.

“Nearly two decades later, Guyana has demonstrated what is possible,” Ali said.

King Charles said he hoped other countries would follow Guyana’s example in confronting the “enormous existential threats we face.”

In 2009, Norway agreed to provide $250 million to help protect Guyana’s 18 million hectares of forest.

Guyana has earned $353 million from carbon credit sales in recent years. In November 2022, it became the first country to issue such credits under a global standard aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The following month, U.S.-owned Hess Corporation, a partner in Guyana’s offshore oil sector, agreed to buy $750 million worth of carbon credits over the next decade. Guyana’s government pledged to set aside 30% of the proceeds for development projects in Indigenous Amerindian communities.

“Our ambitions continue to grow, to encompass biodiversity, sustainable cities, and a better relationship between people and nature,” Ali said.

After his brief speech, he took a sip from a freshly cut coconut before meeting with Indigenous leaders known as “toshaos.”

Earlier on Friday, Charles met veterans who served in the British Guiana defense forces before Guyana gained independence in 1966. He also visited Independence Park, where enslaved people were publicly executed in the 1800s following one of the region’s largest slave revolts.

Some Caribbean leaders have called on Britain to apologize and pay reparations for slavery , demands the British government has consistently rejected.