Join the CFA Protected Areas Working Group for an online meeting on Tuesday Dec.17 at 10 AM EST (3 PM UTC) as we present some of the preliminary results from the Protected Areas Finance Capacity Needs Assessment that was launched this past March and was open for 5 months. The results of this survey are meant to inform the wider conservation community and for the CFA Protected Areas Working Group to prioritize its work over the coming years. Your input to this process is critical as we discuss the implications of the results and how best to communicate them through reports, journal articles, etc. the presenters are Charles Besancon, the Chair of the CFA PA Finance Working Group of CFA and Tyler Marcus, Green Business Strategist.
WWF and Partners Secure Long-Term Funding to Protect the Peruvian Amazon
From WWF - The Government of Peru, WWF and partners today announced a commitment of $140 million to expand and effectively manage almost 17 million hectares of protected areas in the Amazon.
The funds will be used to buy wildlife monitoring equipment; develop resilience and mitigation strategies; and increase and strengthen participation by local and indigenous people in the management of protected areas.
The funding supports “Patrimonio Natural del Perú” (National Parks: Peru’s Natural Legacy), a Government of Peru-led cutting-edge initiative to create financial sustainability for the entire national protected areas system of Peru. The initiative will eventually cover 100 percent of Peru’s protected areas network. which is mainly comprised of national parks in the Amazon river basin and marine protected areas in the Andean Coast.
Read the full story on the WWF site and view the Press Release here.
Photo credit: Day’s Edge Productions / WWFUS
Online Meeting for Relaunch of Protected Areas Finance Working Group
Join us for a the first online meeting of the Working Group on Protected Area Finance on November 5th at 15:00 UTC. Annabelle Bladon will present the work she is doing for the Conservation Finance Guide on protected area entry and activity fees.
The webinar will also include a short presentation from Charles Besancon on short and longer-term priorities of the CFA Working Group on Protected Areas Finance including developing best practice guidelines on PA Finance, a semi-annual global report on PA Finance for the Convention on Biological Diversity and other international bodies and targeted support to national governments on PA finance options and implementation. David Meyers, the Executive Director of CFA will be on hand to discuss overall CFA priorities and some upcoming CFA events.
For further information and to RSVP please visit the PA Finance Working Group page
Best wishes,
Charles Besancon
Chair, Working Group on Protected Area Finance
Bhutan to Permanently Protect Network of Protected Areas
The Royal Government of Bhutan, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), donors and partners from around the world announced their commitment to create a USD $43 million fund—the first of its kind in Asia—to permanently protect Bhutan’s network of protected areas.
This funding will be combined with USD $75 million from the Bhutan government, which will be contributed over a 14-year period, to support a new program called Bhutan for Life (BFL). The program, which is supported in part by a USD $26.6 million grant from the Green Climate Fund, will ensure that there is funding forever to properly manage Bhutan’s protected areas—which constitute 51 percent of the country, the highest percentage of land designated as protected in Asia.
The press release can be found here. For further information, both WWF and USNews have provided web stories.
New Database of Protected Areas Business Plans
Government of Seychelles-UNDP-GEF Protected Area Finance and Outer Islands projects will be hosting a Business Planning workshop for Protected Areas in Seychelles in September. In preparation for this training, they have developed a database containing over 40 examples of terrestrial and marine business plans from around the world and guidelines for their development. They hope that this is also a useful resource for other countries. The projects would like to thank all the professionals that contributed literature to this resource folder.
The dropbox link to this database is available here or through the library on our website.
Please feel free to share with colleagues, download and add more business plans.
If you would like any more information about the Protected Area Finance project in Seychelles please contact the project directly.