LifeWeb

Roundtable on Financing Protected Areas in West Africa

Coastal and marine species and habitats have been facing increasing pressure in West Africa. Overfishing, mangrove and other habitat destruction, pollution, urbanization, growing extractive industry, and uncontrolled tourism development are main threat factors causing significant environmental degradation. In order to address these challenges, considerable efforts have been made by various players (governments, local communities, NGOs and development partners) to build a representative network of Protected Areas in West Africa. However, in order speed up the implementation of the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas and enable countries to meet their obligations, there is a need to develop sustainable financing mechanisms for Protected Areas both at national and regional level. [read more]

First meeting:	Dakar, Senegal 27 May 2011
Hosted by:

Expression of Interest

	Far West African Challenge: Strengthening protected areas to preserve biodiversity, address climate change and secure livelihoods
Country	Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone
Abstract	This vision aims to enable seven West African countries (Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal and Sierra Leone) to meet by 2020 their commitments for protected areas under the Convention on Biological Diversity, including Aichi target 11 and related protected area commitments,, by strengthening the national and regional protected areas system. The project will seek to maximise protected areas’ ecosystem services, particularly to local communities; by addressing sustainable finance, addressing institutional and legislative barriers, building capacity of all involved stakeholders to addressing threats, promoting innovative governance mechanisms, as well as a major communication and outreach programme that will advocate the benefits from protected areas.
Funding Needed	$36,900,000 €30 000 000 USD EUR EUR USD
Benefits
Area Impacted	seven West African countries
Objective	(1) Establishing a regional coordination - “Protected area pledge: Africa far west” (2) Establishment of a regional protected areas’ network and associated biological corridors (3) Identification of value of goods and services from protected areas along with the main beneficiaries (4) Implementation of capacity building and outreach activities for protected area staff, communities and policy-makers (5) Integration of climate change into protected areas planning and management (6) Development of sustainable finance mechanisms for protected areas (7) Promotion of legislation and policy related to protected areas (8) Development of tools for addressing threats to protected areas
Scale	Multi-country
Scope	Creating new protected areas, Strengthening management of existing protected areas
Date Submitted	20-May-2011