Chief Executive Officer of Iwokrama International Centre (IIC) Dane Gobin and Dave Dennis, Head of Instream Energy Systems from Vancouver Canada signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Monday for the purpose of providing reliable, environmentally friendly, low-cost hydrokinetic energy to support conservation and sustainable use of Guyana’s natural resources.
As part of the collaboration, Gobin said IIC is keen to develop and implement joint green energy initiatives and models which can support IWOKRAMA and local riverain communities and which could scale up to larger industrial and commercial projects including agriculture and mining.
Dennis in his brief remarks said, “We are delighted IWOKRAMA sees value in our versatile hydrokinetic energy solutions in terms of helping them meet their environmental and conservation goals. Major General Singh was an important catalyst in terms of connecting our technology with this amazing opportunity.”
Gobin, in response, said Iwokrama looks forward in earnest to this collaboration while noting that the Centre has introduced new technologies to Guyana in the past and believes that working with Instream can indeed further community livelihoods, conservation and other development objectives contained in the Low Carbon Development Strategy 2030.
He said, “Green energy remains an important objective for Guyana.”
The Iwokrama International Centre was established in 1996 under a joint mandate from the Government of Guyana and the Commonwealth Secretariat to manage the Iwokrama forest, a unique reserve of 371,000 hectares of rainforest in a manner that will lead to lasting ecological, economic and social benefits to the people of Guyana and to the world in general.”
The Centre, guided by an international Board of Trustees, is unique in providing a dedicated well managed and researched forest environment. The forest is zoned into a Sustainable Utilization Area (SUA) and a Wilderness Preserve (WP) in which to test the concept of a truly sustainable forest where conservation, environmental balance and economic use can be mutually reinforcing.
The IIC collaborates with the Government of Guyana, the Commonwealth and other international partners and donors to develop new approaches and forest management models to enable countries with rainforests to market their ecosystem services whilst carefully managing their resources through innovative and creative conservation practices.
In more recent years, the Centre has received support from corporate partners such as Exxon Mobil (Guyana) Limited which has funded the development of its Science Programme and continues to provide an annual contribution to the implementation of this Programme.
As for Instream Energy Systems (IES), it is a Canadian firm which is considered a pioneer developer of versatile, clean, reliable, and low-cost hydrokinetic energy solutions for inland waterways and tidal applications.
The company’s globally patented vertical axis hydrokinetic turbines efficiently convert the kinetic energy in moving water into renewable electricity and have been proven safe in marine and avian habitats.
IES was founded in 2008 with strategic and design partner BAE Systems, who co-developed the IES technology. IES works with multiple strategic partners, licensees, and stakeholders committed to in sustainable energy to implement its technology for projects in North and South America, the EU, and the UK.
