Protected areas are important tools to ensure water supply for domestic use, agriculture and industry. Well designed protected areas can safeguard natural ecosystems, protect local rural populations and provide water for agriculture while simultaneously securing downstream water supplies for urban areas. The role of protected areas in freshwater security is seriously under appreciated and undervalued, especially in light of the multiple benefits they can provide to local livelihoods, biodiversity and recreation.
| |
|
Fact: Approximately one-third of the world’s largest cities rely on freshwater from protected areas. Example: Approximately 80% of Quito, Ecuador’s drinking water is derived from two protected areas: the Antisana and Cayambe-Coca Ecological Reserves
|
| |
|
Fact: The freshwater provided by protected areas and natural catchments is worth billions of dollars per year. Example: 2.7m people in Peru use water that originates from 16 protected areas with an estimated value of US$81m. The rivers in these protected areas also contribute to 60% of Peru's hydroelectricity generation, with an estimated value of US$320m.
Fact: Forest protected areas and intact forest catchments reduce siltation and pollutants and improve the quality and clarity of freshwater. Example: Approximately 90% of Melbourne, Australia’s freshwater supply originates in forest catchments. |
| |
|
Fact: Catchments and watercourses protected in order to secure freshwater supplies may have high biodiversity and can provide synergistic benefits to conservation and livelihoods. Example: Bukit Timah National Park in Singapore (see box) |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Bukit Timah NP in Singapore was created to protect urban water supplies and has simultaneous benefits to biodiversity conservation as both a wildlife haven and the last intact forest on Singapore Island |
|
|
Recipients: Suggestion Actions
- We encourage the submissions of Expressions of Interest that profile projects using protected areas as tools to safeguard and improve the quality of rural and urban water supply as a sustainable livelihood strategy.
- These Expressions of Interest should highlight any potential synergistic benefits to climate change adaptation and mitigation, and local livelihoods.
Donors: Important Information
- Protected areas are important tools to sustainably protect drinking water supplies to urban and rural areas while simultaneously delivering potential benefits to biodiversity conservation and local livelihoods, thereby enabling societies to adapt to climate change.
Expressions of Interest: Freshwater Security
|
|
|
|
| Yayu Coffee Forest Biosphere Reserve: Model site for integration of research-based conservation and development |
|
Yayu forest is one of the priority forest areas in Ethiopia. Over 450 higher plants, 50 mammal, 200 bird, and 20 amphibian species have been recorded in the area. The forest is also one of the few remnant habitats for coffee (Coffea arabica). Ethiopia is the only center of origin and diversity for C. arabica and hence is important for in situ conservation of genetic diversity. The Yayu coffee forest is also important for the livelihoods of local households and stakeholders at different levels. This project aims to reduce deforestation and forest degradation while contributing to the improvement of local livelihoods through adaptive conservation-development integration activities. To achieve this, the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve approach will be adopted. This project’s specific objectives are to strengthen the capacity of government agencies and community-based organizations responsible for biosphere reserve establishment and management, brand, promote and market coffee forest products, rehabilitate degraded parts of the forest area and establish protocols for the monitoring of forest conditions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Management and Protection Enhancement of Private Natural Areas in Honduras |
|
The conservation of private lands in Honduras began in 2001 and consequently the Honduran Network of Private Nature Reserves was established as a central initiative of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor Project which was also supported by other projects and international cooperation programs, intended to bring together a significant number of landowners with interest to promote the conservation and management of natural resources in one association, with the ultimate aim of bringing these to the category of private reserves. As one of the activities under the work program of the CBD in PA, the government of the Honduran Republic promotes the strengthening of management and private conservation initiatives, considering that it can complement the conservation of fragile ecosystems underrepresented in the national system of protected areas in Honduras. Dry forest ecosystems are one of the most threatened and also a priority for private nature reserves.The remnants of dry forest are subject to constant threats from the surrounding productive landscape, due to limited capacities, knowledge and experience of local planners in land use and landscape.
|
|
|
|
Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines |
22-Feb-2010 |
|
| My Island My Community: A Public Awareness and Behaviour Change Program for Climate Change for the OECS |
|
The Eastern Caribbean is at the front line of adapting to climate change. Small islands are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, protected areas, economies, tourism and the communities that live there.
While global attention has been brought to bear on this issue, there remains a critical communications challenge: how to effectively engage the public, ensuring they have access to sound and timely information and a clear vision of what they can do to help mitigate the challenges posed by climate change.
My Island – My Community is an ambitious new partnership program committed to building public awareness across the Eastern Caribbean to encourage wide spread behavior change with regard to small island community preparedness and adaptation to climate change. It brings together a unique network of organizations committed to using the power of communications to enhance knowledge sharing, engage the public and directly support CBA activities (Community Based Adaption) across the 9 countries of the Eastern Caribbean.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lao People's Democratic Republic |
19-Oct-2009 |
|
| Improved management of the Nam Kading National Protected Area of Bolikhamxay Province, Lao PDR |
|
The Nam Kading National Protected Area is the third largest in Lao PDR at over 1,600 square kilometers, and can likely support viable populations of many medium sized mammals under threat, including at least four Critically Endangered and Endangered primate species. These include the Northern White-cheeked Gibbon, the Southern White-cheeked Gibbon, Red-shanked Douc Langur and one or possibly two Leaf-monkey species in the taxonomically unclear (but clearly highly threatened) Trachypithecus complex.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Development of an independent Conservation Trust Fund supporting Uganda's protected area system |
|
A coalition of Government, NGOs, and civil society organizations have come together to discuss the need to develop a mechanism for long-term financing of Uganda’s protected areas. The group has recommended the creation of the Uganda Conservation Trust Fund (UCTF) that is independent of Government and which can generate the financial resources necessary to support the management of protected areas in Uganda.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Sustainable Management of Coastal Marine Resources of 6 Protected Areas of the Honduran Caribbean |
|
The region's Caribbean coast is under intense anthropogenic pressure, as the populations of the five provinces that comprise the region, reach a total of just over 1. 7 million inhabitants, which represents 28% of the total population. Most of the population are Garifunas and Miskito (ethnic groups), which are located along the coastal area of the country. These ethnic communities are highly vulnerable, living in poverty and are seriously threatened by the degradation of natural resources. Project objectives include strengthening the governance of the region through institutional strengthening of NGOs and government institutions involved, improving the technical, financial regulation and management of coastal marine resources, accomplishing sustainable management and recovery of marine ecosystems through implementation of best fishing practices, tourism and infrastructure for economic development in the area, designing and implementing monitoring programs and research for decision makers by key stakeholders and implementing environmental education programs that promote good practices and sustainable development.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Strengthening the management of 7 Protected Areas in the Department of Olancho |
|
The project will take place in the Department of Olancho, one of the most important regions related to forestry resources, which are very important for the national and local economy. The majority of the local communities involved in this project live in poverty, and lack the tools and mechanisms to effectively participate in the management of protected areas. The project objectives include consolidating the network of protected areas (7) of the Region of Olancho, managing PAs effectively and participatively and achieving an ecologically representative network, in order to accomplish environmental, social and economic functions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Extending and strengthening Afghanistan’s Protected Area System |
|
The proposed Little Pamir protected areas harbour Afghanistan’s largest populations of Marco Polo sheep. transboundary populations shared with China, Pakistan and Tajikistan. The area is one of WWF’s Global 200 ecoregions; i.e., one of the 200 most important ecoregions in the world. Band-e-Amir is Afghanistan’s only formally recognized protected area. By establishing Ajar as Wildlife Reserve and the Corridor as a protected landscape, a large area of northern Hazarajat will be brought under protection ensuring connectivity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Action Tsitongambarika |
|
Intrinsic Biodiversity Problem - The disappearance of the lowland humid forest ecosystem of TGK would constitute a loss of the largest remaining area of this highly threatened and diverse vegetation type in Southern Madagascar, as well as a number of species endemic to the SE, and even to TGK itself, and many more that are poorly, if at all, represented in existing PAs.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| A Community Partnership Park for Forests, Communities & the Zambezi River |
|
The middle reach of the Zambezi River, from Chirundu, Zambia, to the river’s entry into Mozambique, is renowned for its wildlife diversity and abundance. This spectacular area, visited by thousands of tourists from around the world each year, hosts some of Africa’s best remaining populations of Nile crocodile, hippopotamus, African elephant, and African buffalo, and is also home to wild dog, lion, leopard, eland, sable and Lichtenstein’s hartebeest.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Management support to the Northern Reefs management area |
|
The Northern Reefs area includes a large number of marine habitat types, including seagrass beds, algal flats, barrier reefs, fringing reefs, patch reefs, atolls, sunken atoll, lagoon areas, small sand spits/islands, and small volcanic rock islands.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
United Republic of Tanzania |
03-Sep-2009 |
|
| Western Tanzania Livelihoods and Forest Conservation Project |
|
In the forested regions of western Tanzania two project sites with protected areas at their core include communities that depend on and are essential for future sustainability and improved effectiveness of these protected areas. Yet these communities threaten the viability of the forest and freshwater upon which they depend.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|