Spain-UNEP LifeWeb Partnership
to Raise Incomes and Improve Conservation
in Protected Areas in Asia, Africa and Latin
America
Nagoya, 28 October 2010-More than fifteen
protected areas, including one managing
monk seals off Mauritania and another in
Sumatra that is home
to orangutans, tigers and elephants, are
to receive a US$6.8 million conservation
boost.
Today, at the 10th Conference
of the Parties to the Convention on Biological
Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, the government
of Spain and the UN Environment Programme
(UNEP) announced a new partnership for protected
areas under the LifeWeb initiative.
The partnership, supporting
mainly low income and developing countries,
aims to deliver benefits not just for biodiversity
but for communities living in and around
protected areas.
For example, in the
Garamba National Park in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, some of the funds
will support improved health services for
local people.
In Panama and El Salvador,
support to the Mesoamerican terrestrial
protected areas will help develop innovative
economic and legal instruments to promote
sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems
through their social and economic values,
and the ecosystem services.
The partnership will
also support the establishment of new protected
areas that in turn can generate new streams
incomes for local people. This includes
improving links between existing national
parks and marine reserves in West Africa
to create a protected area network for sea
turtles, in Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau
and Senegal.
Teresa Ribera, Spain's
Secretary of State for Climate Change, said:
"The growth in Protected Areas is one
of the real success stories of conservation
over the past half century. The challenge
is to ensure that as many as possible of
these around 100,000 sites are well-managed
and in a way that maximizes livelihood and
income opportunities for people alongside
securing the biodiversity and economically-important
ecosystems found at such important sites.
Our government's investment is aimed at
achieving these triple win goals and realizing
the opportunities at initially 11 demonstration
projects on marine, coastal and terrestrial
protected areas. In doing so, it is making
a contribution to advancing the biodiversity
targets and the poverty-related UN Millennium
Development Goals."
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General
and UNEP Executive Director, said: "I
want to thank the Government of Spain for
their leadership and support by investing
in these nature-based asset-assets providing
services such as water supplies, soil fertility
and carbon storage worth trillions of dollars
a year to local and indeed the global economy."
"The evidence linking
poverty eradication and protected areas
is also emerging. A recent report by UNEP's
Green Economy team for example cited Costa
Rica. Here wages and employment have risen
and poverty has been reduced since the protected
area estate was expanded to some 26 per
cent of the country's land surface,"
he added.
Mr. Steiner cited other
cases, including from the UNEP-hosted, The
Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity
(TEEB), where investment in sustainable
management are triggering dividends.
In Venezuela, investment
in the national protected area system is
preventing sedimentation that otherwise
could reduce farm earnings by around US$3.5
million a year.
Investment in the protection
of Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve is
generating an annual of income of close
to US$50 million a year, has generated 7,000
jobs and boosted local family incomes.
The protected areas
to benefit from the UNEP-Spain LifeWeb partnership
include:
Africa
The Takamanda National
Park in Cameroon, where funds will provide
economic incentives to conserve the habitat
of the rare Cross-River Gorilla with additional
benefits for curbing climate change linked
with deforestation.
The Garamba and the
Kazuhi-Biega National Parks in the Democratic
Republic of Congo where funds will support
improved conservation of various rare and
endangered species including the Northern
white rhino, chimpanzee, elephant and gorilla.
The Lossi Fauna Reserve
and the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park
in the Republic of the Congo where it is
planned to boost tourism and thus income
for local people by hiring locally-recruited
park staff.
The Iles d'Orango National
Park, João Vieira-Poilão National
Park, Rio Cacheu Mangroves Natural Park
in Guinea-Bissau, where funds will be used
to conserve threatened species such as manatee,
sea turtles and migrating water birds and
to develop strategies to reduce harmful
fishing.
Sea Turtles Marine Protected
Areas Network in four West African countries
through the reinforcement of conservation
measures to protect sea turtle populations,
considering the risks caused by the sea-level
dynamics in littoral ecosystems and climate
change effects.
Banc d'Arguin National
Park in Mauritania where funds will support
the critically endangered Mediterranean
monk seal and its associated habitats. Surveillance
measures will be reinforced in the Satellite
Reserve of Cap Blanc to help conserve, the
natural habitat of the seal and seal populations
in the region. Funds will also go towards
public awareness activities in the marine
protected areas.
Asia
Gunung Leuser National
Park in northern Sumatra, Indonesia to help
restore degraded habitats that support species
including orangutan, rhinoceros and tigers.
Mesoamerica
Volcán Barú
National Park in Panama, and La Montañona
Conservation Area in El Salvador where the
aim is developing the economic and legal
mechanisms to increase the sustainable use
of natural resources, and develop linkages
among biodiversity, ecosystem services,
and human well-being on the basis of environmental
and socio-economic values.
South and Northeast
Pacific and Wider Caribbean
Marine Mammal Corridors
and Critical Habitat in the South and Northeast
Pacific and the Wider Caribbean Regions
is strengthening regional platforms to improve
spatial planning for marine mammals protection
and to develop within the there regions
an overview of essential habitats and migration
routes.
Notes to Editors
About Life Web
The LifeWeb Initiative
was launched in May 2008 during the ninth
meeting of the Conference of the Parties
to the Convention on Biological Diversity,
in Bonn, Germany.
LifeWeb's goal is to
strengthen financing for protected areas
to conserve biodiversity, secure livelihoods
and address climate change, through implementation
of the CBD Programme of Work on Protected
Areas. Developing countries and countries
with economies in transition are invited
to submit expressions of interest through
Life Web to invite financial support for
protected areas from development partners.
The governments of Finland,
Germany and Spain are the principal donors
to Life Web.
www.cbd.int/lifeweb
