Gef-iw5 etps mangroves
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- SECTION 1: PROJECT SUMMARY
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
CI-GEF PROJECT AGENCY Improving mangrove conservation across the Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape (ETPS) through coordinated regional and national strategy development and implementation. PROJECT DOCUMENT SECTION 1: PROJECT SUMMARYDespite a growing recognition of the importance of mangroves and the many key services they provide, an estimated third of global coverage has been reduced in recent history through deforestation and degradation of the coastal buffer. This dramatic loss is already impacting coasts globally as the numerous ecosystem services provided by mangroves are reduced and lost. For example, it is now recognized that mangrove ecology sequesters carbon from the ocean and atmosphere at some of the highest rates of any ecosystem, making their conservation highly relevant for climate change mitigation. Mangroves also provide many benefits that are essential for communities to adapt to the impacts of climate change, including coastal protection from storms, erosion and flooding control and food security. At local scales they sustain extensive biological communities and provide a range of economic and cultural benefits to associated human societies. The highest proportion of threatened mangrove species are to be found in South America with over 40% of the mangrove species in the ETPS region listed as threatened along the Pacific coasts of Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador (Polidoro et al, 2010). Given that regional rates of loss are similar to those observed globally in coastal regions, continuing mangrove losses in the ETPS are estimated to be in the order of 1-2% each year. This implies an alarming mid to long term loss of crucial ecosystem services and a very real cost for future generations. Business-as-usual scenarios include a loss of functional biological diversity, accumulation of pollutants, a shift from low impact sustainable and traditional cultures to high risk unsustainable extractive practices and livelihoods, instability in food/ fisheries security and reduced storm surge and tsunami protection. Developing countries in tropical and sub-tropical regions harbor the greatest remaining extensions of mangrove forest, these often being adjacent to settlements lacking basic services that heavily depend on the resource. In order to help reverse trends in mangrove degradation, support to these societies involves understanding the cultural, social and economic issues and challenges they face given the pressures levied upon ecosystem goods by often rapid coastal developments. There are also expected benefits from facilitating coordinated actions over the wider region. This project will take place within the framework of a region where existing initiatives, regional scale projects and national investments have contributed within the last decades to set up enabling conditions that help ensure success of new mangrove conservation initiatives. On-the-ground conservation efforts that are linked to the development of sustainable societies present an opportunity to help strengthen the link between safeguarding local livelihoods and improved practices that sustain the resource. Despite challenges, governments of the ETPS countries are generally increasingly willing and committed to support conservation efforts recognizing to some extent the role and general value of ecosystems for human well-being. Even so, most of these efforts work at small scales and we are still seeing continued loss due to lack of enforcement, coordination and capacity on all scales. While urban encroachment and deforestation at many eastern Pacific sites continues, many ecological ridge-to-reef processes that influence mangroves extend beyond the jurisdiction or influence of site level management. These processes when altered or interrupted can significantly impact downstream mangrove areas (e.g. changes to groundwater management through urban, agriculture and industrial expansion, upstream pollution etc.). They are also often subject to a different set of national planning instruments given that land use, jurisdictions, stakeholder and decision maker priorities, concerns and interests can differ significantly across ridge-to-reef spatial scales. Despite differences in economies, culture and governance between the ETPS countries there are many similarities between the root problems and potential solutions for a sustainable use of mangrove resources and great potential to draw upon experiences, develop and interchange technical criteria in support of strengthened national policy. Currently regional efforts that address trans-boundary conservation, management or policy related to mangroves are limited, including regional guidelines to estimate the impacts on mangroves and consequences of mangrove loss. Similarly, there are no mechanisms to support cross-learning from the portfolio of mangrove projects in the region. The current project was motivated by recognition of these limitations and the early development of a CPPS regional mangrove plan that promotes a shared technical base and standards for policy development. The GEF-IW 5 solicitation affords a unique opportunity to help consolidate concerted trans-boundary planning for actions and cross-learning, making conservation actions more cost effective, illuminating and productive than when addressing any one country or scale. It is also an opportunity to help promote the integration of aforementioned key EBM and resilience concepts such as reef to ridge planning into national policy. To help strengthen the concept of sustainable and resilient ETPS societies the project aims to implement a comprehensive, ratified and regionally articulated mangrove conservation strategy in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape (ETPS) countries of Costa Rica, Panamá, Colombia and Ecuador. The project intends to work over regional, national and local ridge-to-reef scales to help safeguard these critical habitats and the human societies they support. Expected benefits include helping restore and sustain coastal and marine ecosystem goods and services, reducing vulnerability to climate variability and potentially reducing pollution loads into ETPS coastal waters by addressing upstream processes through policy. The work will be undertaken by an alliance of institutions led by the CI-ETPS initiative in coordination with the CI-Global Marine program and joint project partners CPPS and UNESCO-Quito bringing a strong coordinated conservation, policy and management foundation to the project. This coalition has established a strong and expansive policy, partner and networking framework across the four countries. This project will expand that core and the strong science base on which to frame conservation strategies. The wider partner network also provides opportunity to draw upon projects and programs not necessarily directly linked to mangrove conservation, but of relevance to upstream and downstream effects that can be mitigated through ridge-to-reef national policy planning and management (e.g. urban planning, agriculture and irrigation, charcoal production etc.). Capacity building and transferable technical tools at the regional and national level will have considerable potential to enable and leverage other opportunities to strengthen sustainable use of mangrove areas. The ETPS countries confirmed their interest to participate in the project through approaches in the early PIF stage (June 2014). At this point the EA team responded to questions raised by GEF-SEC during the PIF review as part of the response to Project Agency review of the PPG proposal (these having since been worked into the design of the project – please see Section 4O and descriptions in 4B [Output 2.2.1]). During the subsequent PPG phase (June 2014 – May 2015) virtual and in-country meetings were held between the relevant authorities, project executing partners CI-ETPS, CI-Global Marine, CPPS and UNESCO-Quito and the corresponding CI-field offices of each of the four ETPS countries to further develop safeguard base-line information, project strategy and budget considerations (please see Section 4H and Appendix VI[a]). The work is planned over a two year period (August 2015 - July 2017) during which the project will respond to feedback and evaluation through both monitoring by the Project Management Unit and review by the Project Steering Committee (Sections 6, 7 & Appendix IV). In accordance with CI-ESMF best practice guidelines four safeguard plans were developed during the PPG phase of the project in response to the results of the CI-GEF Project Agency screening process (June-September 2014). Hence a Stakeholder Engagement Plan, Indigenous Peoples Plan (scoped to Afro-descendant Colombian communities following consultation with the Colombian environmental authority), a Process Framework for Involuntary Restriction of Access to Resources and a Gender Mainstreaming Strategy were drafted to help guide ethical and effective practice in all aspects of project implementation. Knowledge sharing and capacity building are key elements transversal to the project which will be coordinated with existing outreach programs and applications such as the CPPS-UNESCO-IOC SPINCAM regional on-line data repository and GEF-UNEP Blue Forest tools for decision makers. Trans-boundary interchanges between policy makers will aim to encourage evaluation and applicability of successful strategies to the situation of each country. This encourages a "feed-forward" multiplying effect of small scale benefits where the most useful examples and experiences can be extrapolated to other areas and national planning frameworks. This will help potentiate lessons learned and opportunities afforded by the portfolio of past and ongoing conservation projects related to mangrove conservation in the region (detailed in Section 3G and 4F). Key gulfs in the four countries were assessed over the PPG period for their suitability as demonstration sites for sustainability initiatives through approaches to national authorities and local communities. The four selected gulf areas of Nicoya (Costa Rica), Chiriquí (Panama), Tortugas (Colombia) and Guayaquil (Ecuador) are home to some of the most extensive mangrove ecosystem areas in the region adjacent to sizeable urban developments. Three main components were strategically developed to improve stakeholder understanding, valuation and management of mangrove resources; to develop mangrove conservation through enabling sustainable development policy, addressing ridge-to-reef impact mitigation and improving awareness over (1) ETPS regional, (2) national and (3) local scales: Component 1 focuses upon regional mangrove strategy development and implementation. Under this component, the project aims to complete and support the implementation of a government-led regionally articulated mangrove strategy that promotes regional harmonization of national policy, technical and governance frameworks and support the creation of regional trans-boundary coordination mechanisms and implementation capacity across ETPS countries in favor of mangrove conservation. To complete this component, a technical working group on mangrove conservation will be formed and meetings and exchanges will be organized between policy thought leaders of each ETPS country (OFPs) to enable discussions on the regional policy and help update and implement a regional mangrove action plan. Component 2 focuses on national mangrove plans and policy strengthening. It aims to ensure that national regulations and action plans are improved and made consistent with the regional mangrove strategy such that priority mangroves are subject to an improved policy conducive to more effective on-the-ground conservation. An important concept is the integration of ridge-to-reef planning and EBM principles across traditional management areas and jurisdictions. This considers the upstream processes that can impact mangrove areas (such as changes in irrigation, pollution by industry and changes in land use) and the need for more comprehensive EIAs over watershed scales. To support this, national mangrove policy assessment (adapted to the needs and context of each country) for each ETPS country will be completed. Methodology(ies) and toolkit(s) to guide the implementation of economic valuation of mangrove ecosystem services will be developed and shared through participation in various fora or disseminated through other communication channels such as an interactive knowledge-sharing platform. Component 3 focuses on local conservation actions by ensuring that local policy and management plans are strengthened and made consistent with national plans and the regional strategy in at least 2 of four selected local sites. These are areas where field conservation measures are underway to reduce degradation and increase mangrove coverage through restoration efforts. A key activity under this plan will be to support the completion and management of local development plans as well as holding training events to build skills relating to field conservation measures and restoration of mangroves. Demonstration projects that provide incentives and/or that create business opportunities associated with the conservation and sustainable use of mangroves will also be initiated in at least two of the selected sites. The sites for on-the-ground demonstration projects and support of local management planning were determined as;
The sites were selected during the PPG phase by CI-ETPS and Country teams through consultation with the relevant authorities in each area considering primarily the natural value of the site and continued risk from urbanization as well as national priorities, synergies with other projects, the possibility of cost-match and complementary activities with other projects. Yüklə 0,92 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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