Description
The Guiana Shield Initiative (GSI) was an ambitious ecoregional project launched in 1993 with the aim of setting up a sustainable financial mechanism to conserve the unique intact ecosystems of the Guiana Shield. In 2010, GSI morphed into what is known today as the Guiana Shield Facility, a multi-donor funding facility with the support of the United Nations Development Programme and the EU.
The premise was that without financial stability for conservation and sustainable development activities, the natural resources of one of the few remaining expansive tracts of primary forest will disappear due to exploitation for short-term financial gains via destructive activities, such as logging, mining, the advancing agricultural frontier and ill-planned infrastructure.
