The LifeWeb Initiative:Strengthening financing for protected areas to conserve biodiversity, secure livelihoods and address climate change, through implementation of the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas.

The LifeWeb Coordination Office is managed by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Finland supports Tanzania’s Livelihoods and Forest Conservation Project under LifeWeb

Read the press release.
Read more about the project.

Last March brought exciting news as Finland announced its support for Tanzania’s Livelihoods and Forest Conservation Project, marking the first project that Finland will contribute to as a partner in the LifeWeb Initiative.

The government of Finland also announced that it will look for further opportunities to support nature conservation projects through the LifeWeb Initiative in the future.

The project in Tanzania will involve local communities that live in the buffer zone of two existing protected areas, the Gombe National Park and the Mahale Mountains National Park, the only national parks with chimpanzees in Tanzania. The project will assist local communities in developing  village land use plans, conservation-friendly businesses, environmental education, and climate change adaptation strategies to address biodiversity threats and strengthen local livelihoods.  The total cost of the project is €480,000 Euro, €250,000 of which will be provided by the Government of Finland, with the remaining balance coming from the Tanzanian government through the National Parks authority, as well as the Frankfurt Zoological Society and The Nature Conservancy.

“The LifeWeb Initiative will have a great impact worldwide. Losing biological diversity is a threat comparable to climate change and we must fight against it. Biologically diverse forests form a crucial piece of the solution in the battle against climate change and natural disasters. Preserving biological diversity is also a lifeline for local communities.”- Minister of Environment Paula Lehtomäki, March 2010.

The Government of Germany Has Already Supported 27 Projects Totaling Over €80 million Euros

Since the launch of the LifeWeb Initiative in May 2008, the Government of Germany has provided financial support to 27 projects in partner countries totaling over €80 million Euros, including funding the operations of the LifeWeb Coordination Office. Germany will considerably increase its support for conservation of biodiversity in the coming years and target needs of partner countries profiled through the LifeWeb Initiative clearing house.  

Click here to view supported projects.

Coming Soon: Carbon Estimation Tool for Protected Areas

LifeWeb has teamed up with UNEP-WCMC to develop a web-based tool to estimate the carbon and biodiversity values of protected area projects.   This will strengthen the case for financing of protected areas and highlight their benefits to both climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation.

All project submitters to the LifeWeb clearing house will be able to use this tool to estimate the carbon and biodiversity values of their project. Carbon and biodiversity values will be estimated “on the fly” by selecting areas in the World Data Base on Protected Areas, providing coordinates, and/or drawing a polygon on a map. The estimates will be used to strengthen the individual “Recipient Expressions of Interest” submitted on the LifeWeb clearing house.

A working version of the tool will be ready for launch at CBD SBSTTA14 (May 10-21, 2010) in Nairobi, Kenya, and it will be officially introduced during a side event on May 12, 2010. A further demonstration will be held at UNFCCC SBSTA32 in Bonn, Germany, on June 2, 2010. A second version with additional ecosystem goods and service options will be operational by October 2010 for CBD COP10.

What's New

Updated Website

The LifeWeb website has been redesigned and can now be viewed in French and Spanish. New features include more information for potential donors  and a search function to search for Expressions of Interests according to ecosystem services provided and region affected.  Check it out at http://www.cbd.int/lifeweb/.

What is LifeWeb

LifeWeb provides a user-friendly clearing house for countries to profile their protected area needs and invites international support; facilitates funding matches; coordinates counterpart financing among donors; and recognizes donor support and innovation for natural solutions.  

The Life Web Initiative was launched in May 2008 at the ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn, Germany. For further information on LifeWeb, please visit our website or download our brochure.

Donors Involvement

LifeWeb applauds the contributions of its committed donors, the governments of Germany, Finland, and Spain, and further invites donors to consider supporting protected area projects profiled on the LifeWeb website, as consistent with the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.  For more information on donor involvement and value added for donors , click here.