Guyana will host an international biodiversity financing summit in the final quarter of this year as the country seeks to attract greater global investment in conservation and environmental protection.
President Irfaan Ali is expected to soon announce the official date of the summit.
Lead Climate Negotiator Pradeepa Bholanath said the forum would shift the focus from scientific discussion to concrete action on financing.
“We will see the conversation move beyond science to practical undertakings in terms of how we mobilise financing to enable biodiversity conservation activities to receive more resourcing,” she told the Starting Point podcast on Sunday.
The announcement comes as the Guyana-led Global Biodiversity Alliance has grown rapidly, expanding from 17 members in 2025 to 125 today. The alliance, launched in July 2024 to bring together governments, businesses and organisations to address biodiversity loss, has attracted membership from regional development banks, including the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and the Caribbean Development Bank.
“That kind of momentum is really opening up a lot of new frontiers in terms of looking at ways in which we can finance biodiversity conservation,” Bholanath said.
Guyana has earned more than US$500 million from carbon credit sales since 2022 through its Low Carbon Development Strategy and is now seeking additional financing for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem protection.
