Legacy Project

Global Green Growth Initiative/Indufor Mangrove and Forest Fire project

Funder: Indufor Asia Pacific Ltd

Project Timeline: This project was completed in July 2026.

Country: Guyana

Program Areas: Ecosystem Services, Environment and Forestry & Natural Resource Management

Contact: Tim Holland, Technical Lead, Ecosystem Services, Tim.Holland@winrock.org

Winrock partnered with stakeholders in Guyana to develop a national approach for measuring and assessing carbon stored in the country’s mangrove ecosystems. The work included designing statistically rigorous field-sampling methods, developing standard operating procedures for data collection, and supporting the measurement of mangrove biomass and carbon stocks across coastal and riverine mangrove forests. This work covered mangrove ecosystems along Guyana’s Atlantic coast, from Barima-Waini to East Berbice-Corentyne, including both coastal mangroves and mangroves in river estuaries and tidal river systems.

This project also supported the development of a robust, country-specific emission factor for forest fires in Guyana to strengthen national GHG monitoring and accounting systems. The work involved establishing burned and unburned reference plots, characterizing relevant forest conditions, and quantifying changes in key carbon pools, including aboveground biomass, belowground biomass, saplings, standing deadwood, and lying deadwood.

The resulting analysis provides a Guyana-specific basis for estimating carbon emissions from forest fires and improves the accuracy and credibility of national GHG inventories and REDD+ carbon accounting. The resulting protocols help strengthen Guyana’s forest carbon monitoring efforts and provide a foundation for future blue carbon, climate and coastal resilience initiatives.

(Feature photo credit: Brian Gomes)