Guyana is mapping every living thing under its canopy — and keeping the data in Guyanese hands

Beneath Guyana's forest canopy lies one of the least-catalogued treasure houses of life on Earth. The country has now launched the system to catalogue it: a National Biodiversity Information System that will record species and ecosystems across its highlands, savannahs, rainforests, wetlands, mangroves and ocean — with the data owned by Guyana itself. Environmental Protection Agency executive director Kemraj Parsram presented the system at the second Global Biodiversity Alliance Conference in Georgetown. It grows out of a July 2025 agreement with Yale University's Center for Biodiversity and Global Change, with partners including the Iwokrama International Centre — the first site — Chicago's Field Museum, Map of Life and CIFOR. The map is also a shield: it underpins Guyana's goal of protecting 30% of its land and marine ecosystems by 2030, because you cannot protect what you have not counted.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program