Unveiling Guyana’s biodiversity treasure in the Acarai-Corentyne Corridor

The first-ever scientific exploration in the Guyana Acarai-Corentyne Corridor has shown that the country’s least known and untouched areas host an excess of species.

Assisted by 39 Guyanese and 17 international specialists, 20 days of survey yielded 600+ plant species and 713 vertebrates including 22 species not previously recorded in Guyana and 23 potentially new to science.

It is important for us to undertake this kind of effort along with PAC, a major museum in the United States, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and local institutions of Guyana.

To the extent, owing to the incorporation of indigenous ecological knowledge coupled with scientific technology and techniques, the expedition enhances understanding of this uncharted area.

The expedition leader Dr. Lesley de Souza underscored that Guyana is one of the world’s most biodiverse countries and appealed to combine Amerindian wisdom and science to protect these ecosystems.

As currently stated by the Chairman of PAC, Robert Persaud, this particular research will be of inestimable value for the future development of conservation policies with the further possible classification of the Corridor as a protected area.

Stretched across 1.3 million hectares in between Essequibo and New Rivers Corridor, this Corridor affords opportunity for climb-rite wholesale bindings into carbon conservation and watershed in relation to LCDS 2030.

These results obtained at the Umana Yana in Georgetown, suggest that this is the start of a future project to preserve such a precious ecological area.

Acarai-Corentyne Corridor is one of the most important sites of Guyana which is home to small globally threatened species and hidden opportunities for research and conservation.