Guyana's MRVS: Satellite-Verified Forest Payments, Then a Contested Carbon-Credit Sequel

In 2009, Guyana and Norway signed a pioneering results-based forest agreement. The Guyana Forestry Commission built a national Monitoring, Reporting and Verification System (MRVS), combining wall-to-wall satellite imagery with ground sampling to track annual forest cover and carbon loss.

Verified MRVS results showed average annual deforestation of about 12,000 hectares, a rate of roughly 0.068% - among the lowest of any tropical forest nation. Based on these figures, Norway paid Guyana close to $190 million of a possible $250 million between 2009 and 2015.

In December 2022, the same MRVS data underpinned Guyana's certification of 33.47 million ART TREES carbon credits for 2016-2020, part of a deal to sell up to $750 million in credits to Hess Corporation, with 15% of proceeds earmarked for Indigenous communities.

The certification proved contentious: analysts using independent Global Forest Watch satellite data found forest loss was higher in four of the five crediting years than in the reference period, and Forest Peoples Programme and Rainforest Foundation UK raised concerns about how the baseline was set and how Indigenous communities were consulted. Guyana's MRVS remains a rare example of durable, long-run satellite forest accounting - but its extension into voluntary carbon markets shows how the same infrastructure can produce disputed conclusions once the baseline and financial stakes change.

Read the full analysis: https://forestry.gov.gy/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/MRVS-Summary-Report-Year-7_November-2018_Final.pdf