PRESS RELEASE

For release: July 10, 2007

GEF funding helps countries carry out implementation of the CBD Programme of Work on protected areas

An ambitious project designed to help countries undertake critical work on Protected Areas was announced today by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The project, which is backed by US$ 9.4 million in GEF funding plus co-financing, will support country-driven action towards implementing the Programme of Work on protected areas of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) whose ultimate objective is establishing comprehensive, ecologically-representative and effectively-managed national and regional systems of protected areas.

‘Protected Areas are a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development,’ said Monique Barbut, CEO of the GEF. ‘The PA network is fundamental to our efforts to reduce biodiversity loss and achieve the 2010 biodiversity target adopted by the Parties to the CBD and endorsed by the UN General Assembly. Since PAs also provide important benefits to people, including goods, services, livelihood support and the preservation of natural and cultural heritage, they also contribute to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals and to human well-being.’

Through GEF, UNDP is currently supporting conservation activities in more than 1,000 protected areas across more than 63 countries, with a total area of 85.7 million ha (0.857 million sq km), slightly larger than a country the size of Namibia or Pakistan. Although great progress has been made by GEF and other agencies working in this area, many already-established protected areas are not meeting their biodiversity conservation objectives, have insufficient management systems, or have only limited participation by indigenous people and local communities.

Recognizing that extra attention had to be applied to these and other problems, the Conference to the Parties (COP) to the CBD adopted a Programme of Work on Protected Areas with ambitious goals and time-bound targets. It lists several critical activities including: establishing and strengthening PA systems at national and regional levels; integrating them into a global network; expanding conservation activities into broader landscapes, seascapes and other sectors to maintain ecological structure and function; providing an enabling policy environment for PAs, and building capacity and ensuring financial sustainability.

The new GEF project – Supporting Country Action on the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas – has been developed in response to a request from the COP to the CBD. It has been designed to help countries – particularly Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, who will receive at least 50 percent of the project’s funding – fill short-term needs in their PA activities, which are not addressed by other national projects, including those supported by GEF, other donors and international NGOs. It will be implemented by UNDP in partnership with the CBD Secretariat.

‘The available funding will allow around 35 awards of up to US$ 250,000 each to be made to countries,‘ explained Yannick Glemarec, UNDP-GEF Executive Coordinator ‘Their applications will be vetted by an International Technical Review Committee, comprised of representatives from GEF, UNDP, UNEP, the CBD, regional representatives from the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, and international NGOs including the WWF, Nature Conservancy, and Wildlife Conservation Society.’

The Convention on Biological Diversity is a an international treaty, adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, which aims to save biological diversity, promote its sustainable use, and ensure equal distribution of its benefits. The CBD, regarded as a key instrument in sustainable development, with near universal participation of governments, has embarked on a global effort to establish systems of protected areas and extend biodiversity protection beyond individual sites into adjacent areas and the general landscape and seascape. Its timetable calls for appropriate systems to be in place for terrestrial protected areas by 2010 and marine protected areas by 2012.

‘In the certainty of impending threat of climate change looming large over the survival of life on this planet, protected areas are the best means to adapt to climate change, conserve biological diversity and achieve sustainable development,’ said CBD Executive Secretary Dr Ahmed Djoghlaf. ‘ The importance of effective implementation of the CBD Programme of Work on protected areas for achieving the 2010 biodiversity target cannot be overstated.‘ ‘Although substantial investments are required to establish and maintain protected areas, in the long term they will bring significant environmental, economic and social benefits. This project greatly assists implementation of the CBD Programme of Work.’