Many people in rural areas depend on protected forests, pastures, wetlands and marine areas for their livelihoods. Protected areas, when carefully designed and managed, can contribute to poverty reduction and sustainable development including the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The provisioning services (food, fuel, fresh water and herbal medicines) of protected areas have direct use and value to rural communities. Ensuring environmental sustainability is one of the Millennium Development Goals. One of the indicators to measure progress towards this goal is the percentage of areas under protection. There is increasing recognition that conservation efforts supporting protected area creation and management are essential to achieving the other Millennium Development Goals, since these areas maintain healthy ecosystems and their services. Yet biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation pose a significant threat to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals.
Travel and tourism is one of the world’s largest economic activities. International tourism grew by 10% in 2004 to reach a record high of more than 764 million arrivals and receipts increasing by 9.2% to US$ 633 billion. This growth is in part driven by growing interest in ecotourism and by the increasing numbers of visitors to protected areas. For example, Galapagos National Park and Marine Reserve exceeded 140,000 visitors in 2006 up over 100% in the past decade. Bolivia’s Eduardo Avaroa Reserve has seen an increase from 8,000 visitors in 1999 to over 60,000 in 2005.
Expressions of Interest: Income Generation
|
|
|
|
| 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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Herder Pasture Management in Protected Areas |
|
The project area is situated in one of the largest remaining grassland areas on earth, the Mongolian Manchurian Steppe. The Mongolian Gazelle antelope herds represent the third-largest land animal migration in the world. The migration does not follow fixed routes, however, it can be disturbed by human activity such as domestic herding, mining and other industrial activity (more than half of the country is at least nominally designated for minerals exploitation). Effective contiguity among the three protected areas that comprise the project area will be essential for future North-South migrations. The grassland types effected in the project are underrepresented in protected areas both in Mongolia and worldwide. Their preservation and that of the animal species that reside there are recognized as priorities in the current draft national ecological gap analysis.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Forever Costa Rica |
|
Costa Rica has 26 percent of its land area under various protection management categories. As in many other developing countries, however, challenges and threats are great. This is mainly due to the fact that development continues to pressure the ecological systems around terrestrial and marine protected areas. Overfishing, legal and illegal fishing, unregulated tourism development, urbanization, logging, and water pollution, sedimentation, the degradation of coral reefs and the depletion of fisheries, are threats that affect protected areas as well as other neighboring lands and waters. In addition, despite the enormous efforts made to date, Costa Rica’s protected area system still has conservation gaps that must be addressed if the desired ecological representation is to be achieved.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Strengthening Colombia’s National Protected Areas |
|
This comprehensive national scale project will seek to strenghthen all of the protected areas of which Colombia's National Parks System is currently comprised. At present, this includes 56 protected areas, covering 12.602.320 ha, equivalent to 9.3% of Colombia's terrestrial area and 1.98% of its marine area.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dominican Republic |
30-Dec-2009 |
|
| Strengthening Marine Resource Management Across the Samaná bay Protected Area Complex in the Face of Climate Change |
|
Samaná Bay, a priority site for protection and one of the largest and most productive estuaries in the country, is an important humpback whale breeding area and home to large numbers of endemic species and important habitats including mangroves and seagrass beds, which in addition to providing spawning and recruitment areas, have been shown globally to sequester carbon on the same order as terrestrial forests.
Dwindling vital marine resources and biodiversity in a highly complex seascape increasingly threatened by unsustainable uses are risking the region's main economy and the livilihoods of hundreds fishers and tourism dollars generated from whale watching.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|