FAO/GEF Forestry and Protected Area Management Project

Forestry and protected area management project is funded by Global Environment Facility (GEF) with the assistance of Pacific Alliance for Sustainability (PAS) GEF-PAS. The GEF “Forestry and protected area management” project (GEFPAS-FPAM) is implemented in the four Pacific Island nations of Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and Niue. These four countries are located in two of the World’s 34 “Biodiversity Hotspots”, where the richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life can be found. Vanuatu is at the south eastern end of the East Melanesian Islands Hotspot and accounts for about 12 percent of the land area and contains 35 percent of the threatened plant and animal species occurring in this hotspot. Fiji, Samoa and Niue are at the south western edge of the Polynesia-Micronesia Hotspot that covers most of the southern Pacific Ocean. They account for about 25 percent of the land area of this hotspot and 28 percent of its threatened plant and animal species.


FPAM project is considered in Vanuatu because it is consistent with Vanuatu’s priorities for biodiversity conservation given in its 1999 National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP). The project will be carried out on the island of Santo, Erromango, Gaua and Pentecost. Four Islands have been identified due to its biodiversity hotspot, where species endemism is particularly high and also where species are currently threatened with extinction. However, despite this significant biodiversity, conservation whether in formally protected areas or the wider production landscape is extremely weak. These weaknesses are due to a number of reasons that this project seeks to overcome, including: resistance to change in local communities; poor coordination between stakeholders; lack of capacity (including resources); lack of experience with community-based approaches to conservation and inadequate and out-dated policy and legal frameworks.


PROJECT OBJECTIVES

FPAM objective is to conserve biodiversity of Vanuatu by expanding and consolidating networks of protected areas. Building capacity for conservation management and sustainable use of biodiversity and reducing forest and land degradation.

FPAM project will enhance the sustainable livelihoods of local communities living in and around protected areas. Its global environmental objective is to strengthen biodiversity conservation and reduce forest and land degradation.


Global benefits from the project will include:
  • increased representation of important ecosystems in the protected area networks in these countries;
  • enhanced biodiversity conservation in production landscapes (through mainstreaming and marketing of biodiversity goods and services);
  • increased financial sustainability for protected area management;
  • and reductions
FPAM project has been structured into five technical components:
  1. policy and legal reform;
  2. extension and consolidation of the protected area network;
  3. strengthening capacity for community-based conservation management;
  4. developing mechanisms for sustainable protected area financing;
  5. sustainable use of biodiversity.

Project outcomes will include
  • improved policy,
  • legal and institutional arrangements;
  • more effective and sustainable in situ biodiversity conservation;
  • improved capacity of stakeholders to for biodiversity conservation and sustainable land and forest management;
  • sustainable financing of protected areas;
  • improved livelihoods of local communities from marketing of biodiversity goods and services;
  • and reductions in poor land-use practices and forest degradation.

The project’s development objective is to enhance the sustainable livelihoods of local communities living in and around protected areas. Its global environmental objective is to strengthen biodiversity conservation and reduce forest and land degradation. Global benefits from the project will include: increased representation of important ecosystems in the protected area networks in these countries; enhanced biodiversity conservation in production landscapes (through mainstreaming and marketing of biodiversity goods and services); increased financial sustainability for protected area management; and reductions in the barriers to sustainable forest and land management