Biodiversity
Biodiversity –a source of economic, aesthetic, health and cultural benefits – is an area of key concern to sustainable development and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. It is a GEF focal area because there is general scientific consensus that the world is becoming less biologically diverse in terms of genes, species and ecosystems, and that this rapid loss of biodiversity poses a global threat to human well-being.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) helps developing countries and countries with economies in transition generate global environmental benefits in the area of biodiversity. Between 1991 and 2006, the GEF and its co-financing partners provided approximately US$ 7.37 billion (GEF US$ 2.2 billion) in support of more than 750 biodiversity projects in 155 countries. Biodiversity projects have constituted the largest percentage of the GEF portfolio, making up 36 percent of total GEF grants.
All GEF-funded biodiversity activities conform to the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and are guided by the convention’s Conference to the Parties as well as specific GEF biodiversity criteria including conservation, sustainable use and benefit-sharing. GEF also acts as the financial mechanism of the CBD, which was negotiated at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and now includes 189 countries plus the European Commission as Parties to the Convention.
GEF’s strategy seeks to pursue biodiversity conservation and ensure sustainable utilization of biological resources by working through an ecosystem approach – the primary framework for action under the CBD. Underpinning these responses, UNDP supports efforts to strengthen environmental governance, focusing on unleashing the economic potential of protected areas, to place PA management, expansion and finance within the development paradigm, and mainstreaming biodiversity management objectives into production sector activities. UNDP projects seek to improve the policy framework and institutional capacities, and create an enabling environment for attracting new sources of environmental finance for biodiversity conservation.
See also
Biodiversity Focal Area Strategy and Strategic Programming for GEF-4
Convention on Biological Diversity
Parties
to the Convention on Biological Diversity
UNDP’s GEF biodiversity portfolio now consists of nearly 240 full and medium-sized projects plus 195 enabling activities with a total value of more than US$ 2.12 billion (GEF funding US$ 774 million) in more than 100 countries. Projects range in size from US$ 20,000 (for example for helping countries prepare their reports to the CBD) to multi-country projects costing US$ 30 million or more.
Work in protected areas is, by far the largest area of activities. UNDP, working with GEF support, has registered significant achievements including the creation of 154 new PAs covering 9.95 million hectares. Management effectiveness has been enhanced in 419 PAs covering 51.74 million hectares. Mainstreaming biodiversity into production sectors – a newly developed strategy which works to change production practice along the entire supply chain, from production to retail – is also taking effect in sectors such as agricultural business, fishing, tourism, oil and gas, and mining. An initial analysis indicates that mainstreaming projects are having an impact over an area of 46.1 million hectares.
UNDP’s key objective in its protected areas work through GEF is to conserve biodiversity through the expansion, consolidation, and rationalization of national PA systems. Community action, livelihood creation and poverty alleviation are also objectives – 95 percent of biodiversity projects address protected area-local community relationships and 46 percent involve indigenous people.
Biodiversity projects implemented by UNDP also include research and cataloguing of biodiversity, species protection, coastal management, wetlands protection and mainstreaming biodiversity into production sectors.
Strengthening national institutions and their management is a key strategy with capacity-building accounting for 30 percent of total GEF biodiversity funding and an element of 96 percent of projects. Improving policies, legislation and regulatory environments is an objective of 82 percent of projects and all projects have communications components aimed at raising awareness and knowledge levels.
See also: Project write ups
More information
Operational Strategy in Biodiversity
UNDP-GEF Project Websites
Algeria
Conservation
of biodiversity and sustainable use of natural resources in Algeria
- Nature Vivante
-
Argentina
Patagonian
Coastal Zone Management Plan
Belize
Coastal Zone Management Programme
Bolivia
Conservation of Biodiversity in the Lake Titicaca Basin
Burkina Fasso
Le Ranch de Gibier de Nazinga: Le Ranch a été créé dans
le cadre d'un projet d'utilisation rationnelle de la faune sauvage qui visait
un objectif de la conservation des ressources en animaux sauvages au profit
des populations locales.
Cambodia
Cardamom Mountains Project
Cape Verde
Protect Areas Project : The goal of this project is to establish Cape Verde’s
first network of protected areas with the purpose of conserving globally significant
biodiversity.
Costa Rica
ACMIC - El Área de Conservación Marina Isla del Coco
Czech republic
CZ Carpathian Grasslands
Lebanon
Conservation and Sustainable use of Dryland Agrobiodiversity
Latvia
North
Vidzeme Biosphere Reserve
Lithuania
Conservation of
Inland Wetlands Biodiversity in Lithuania
Malaysia
Conservation and Sustainable Use of Tropical Peat Swamp Forests
Mekong
Wetlands and Water Resources Programme
Mongolia
Mongolia's Wild Heritage: Steppes
Namibia - Strengthening the Protected Area Network
Span Project
Russia:
Kamchatka Protected
areas
Kamchatka
Salmonid
Slovak Republic
Calcareuou fens
Vietnam
Creating Protected Areas for Resource Conservation (PARC)
Regional projects
- Greening the WSSD (pdf 2.9MB)
- Arab States
MedWetCoast Regional Project - Africa
- East African Cross Borders Biodiversity Project
- Biological Diversity Conservation through Participatory Rehabilitation of the Degraded Lands of the Arid and Semi-Arid transboundary Areas of Mauritania and Senegal - Maghreb
Date Palm, Regional project in the Maghreb
Biodiversity - Planning Support Programme
UNDP-GEF Biodiversity
Site
Convention on Biological Diversity
