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Conservation and Biodiversity Get Grants
[8.4.2001 | ]
March 15th was a red-letter day for World Heritage conservation and biodiversity, when Ted Turner's United Nations Foundation (UNF) and the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP) approved two proposals and two planning grants, totalling some US$1.9 million.
Natarajan Ishwaran, Chief of the Natural Heritage Section at the World Heritage Centre, whose team prepared the projects, is hopeful that the new funding will bring in matching grants.
'We hope the two planning grants will reach full project status, and, of course, we hope to raise additional funding for the two full proposals to meet specific project objectives. What we need is partners, matching grants. This is a challenge to the private sector,' he said.
Projects
The largest project grant is for US$1.4 million allocated over two years to study five national parks and reserves in south-eastern Madagascar, with a view to their nomination to the World Heritage List.
Due to Madagascar's isolation, 90 per cent of the island's species are not found anywhere else in the world. The aim is to protect the moist forests, their rare ecosystems and endan-gered species, as extreme poverty, an ever-growing population, logging and slash- and-burn agriculture begin to threaten these important habitat zones.
Additional funds of US$5 to 8 million are being sought in multi-lateral assistance and private sources to expand the project beyond two years.
A planning grant of US$50,400 is aimed at preparing a proposal for a World Heritage Biodiversity Program for India. It is to target five existing and several potential World Heritage sites in the country. This grant will also look at new approaches to mixed, cultural and natural World Heritage nominations. Under consideration are ways of linking, for example, the cultural and religious significance of symbolic species like the elephant and the tiger to the conser-vation of their habitats.
Another planning grant (US$86,100) will cut across borders in west and central Africa in order to come up with an African World Heritage Forest Initiative (AWHFI). The aim is to have a full-fledged proposal for AWHFI by late autumn 2001 for consideration by the United Nations Foundation.
The last project (US$646,800) has been set to improve the efficiency of UNESCO and the World Heritage Centre. It addresses UNF and UNFIP concerns over the World Heritage Centre's capacity to implement projects they have approved, worth US$8.5 million in outright grants.
Cost cutting at UNESCO for the period up until late 2003 has made the recruitment of new staff impossible. This grant will take up the slack for a 30-month period, providing the Centre's Natural Heritage and Administrative sections with two programme assistants and a secretary. UNESCO is then expected to absorb the cost of the staff positions in its Regular Programme budget beginning in 2004.
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