King Charles urges countries to value nature as he tours Guyana's forests and slavery history

Nature as a priority

King Charles III on Friday, 30 October, urged more countries to put a value on nature, praising Guyana for protecting its vast forests while earning millions of dollars from selling carbon credits. Speaking after a meeting with President Irfaan Ali in Georgetown, the capital, the King said finding ways to value nature remained a challenge. He condemned what he called endless deforestation, warning that it was damaging the future of his own and other people's generations, along with human health. He said he hoped other countries would follow Guyana's example in confronting what he described as enormous existential threats.

“Everybody argues about how much. Well, it's priceless. That's the answer.”

Guyana's forest finance

Norway agreed in 2009 to provide $250 million toward protecting the country's 18 million hectares of forest. Guyana has earned $353 million from carbon credit sales in recent years. In November 2022 it became the first nation to issue credits of that kind under a worldwide benchmark for curbing emissions. The following month, the US-owned Hess Corporation, which partners with Guyana in offshore oil, agreed to purchase $750 million of carbon credits over the next decade. The government has committed to setting aside 30% of the proceeds for development projects in Indigenous Amerindian communities, and Ali said the country's ambitions now extend to biodiversity, sustainable cities and better links between people and nature.

Norway pledge, 2009250

Carbon credit earnings, recent years353

Hess carbon credit purchase, next decade750

Norway pledge, 2009

250 USD millions

Carbon credit earnings, recent years

353 USD millions

Hess carbon credit purchase, next decade

750 USD millions

Data from the article text

Independence Park

Later on 30 October, the King visited Independence Park in Georgetown, where enslaved people were publicly executed in the 1800s after the Demerara Rebellion of 1823, an uprising involving thousands of enslaved people. Steven Jacobs, Guyana's culture minister, guided him through the site and explained that hundreds were killed during the revolt and that many survivors were executed close to where the King stood. The Evening Standard reported that 33 of those involved were hanged there. Charles read a sign describing the ground as a public execution site, and Buckingham Palace said the visit showed the King was not shying away from the UK's colonial legacy. The rising had begun in August 1823 on a plantation belonging to Sir John Gladstone, father of the future prime minister William Gladstone. Dozens of schoolchildren were playing sport at the park, and the King stopped to ask several of them about homework and holidays.

Reparations and protest

A small but noisy group of protesters gathered outside one of the King's engagements, holding placards that demanded reparations and said no apology could return what was stolen. Terrence Campbell, a Guyanese politician who serves as an MP for the A Partnership for Unity Party, was among them and said:

“This great wealth was built on the backs of slavery.”

Campbell said he and a small group of activists were stopped by police from protesting about reparations in the area. The King will not apologise for Britain's role in the slave trade during the visit, nor will he offer reparations, in line with the UK government's position. Ali said ahead of the visit that Charles had recognised slavery as one of the darkest chapters in human history, but that a formal apology was the next step.

Tour and summit

The nine-day Caribbean tour began in the Bahamas, where Charles acknowledged great suffering of the past at a youth rally on Tuesday, 27 October. He reached Guyana on Thursday, 29 October, and is scheduled to arrive in Antigua and Barbuda on the evening of Friday, 30 October, ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The Evening Standard reported that the summit will discuss the legacy of slavery. Portrait painter Jonathan Yeo is accompanying the King as official tour artist, a role he called an honour, and will develop a series of images to be unveiled in the months ahead. The BBC reported that several demonstrations have marked the tour, but none has seriously disrupted the King's programme.