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Conservation boost for Brazil investors
The World Bank has approved a $10 million grant to Brazil for the purposes of environmental conservation...
The grant is set to contribute to the preservation, conservation, and sustainable management of the biodiversity of the Caatinga forest in the states of Bahia and Cear, while improving the quality of life of its inhabitants.
This will be excellent news for investors in the burgeoning region ‘Nordeste’ of Bahia, a new hotspot in a country that is making international waves with its superb investment potential. Anything that improves the desirability of Brazil as an investment destination is good news for potential investors.
“This project highlights the importance of sustainable environmental conservation and management as a foundation for sustainable growth and poverty reduction,” said John Briscoe, World Bank Director for Brazil. “The program responds to a need to control the rapid degradation of a unique ecosystem that provides a livelihood for 11 million people in one of Brazil’s poorest regions.”
The Caatinga Conservation and Management Project will support the states of Bahia and Cear, which together encompass about 50 percent of the Caatinga forest, in the design and implementation of policies that create incentives for an integrated management of ecosystems.
Economic opportunities
The project will enhance the capacity for management of protected areas, develop capacity to assess and monitor the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, and identify and implement replicable demonstration projects.
“With support from this project, rural poor in Brazil’s northeast will be stewards of their natural resource base and participants in activities that promote conservation, reverse desertification and provide economic opportunities,” said Monique Barbut, GEF CEO and Chairperson.
Specifically, the project will support the following activities:
1. Strengthening local institutions committed to integrated ecosystem management and conservation of the Caatinga biome in Bahia and Cear.
2. Financing approximately 200 demonstration subprojects to ensure sustainability of conservation efforts and prevention of land degradation in the Caatinga biome at the local level. Potential investments include:
- Reforestation through tree planting;
- Development of small ruminant grazing corridors;
- Introduction of sustainable agro-forestry techniques;
- Development of local drought management plans;
- Development of hill slope erosion control;
- Fire awareness and control programs;
- Introduction of soil and water management practices.
3. Establishing a monitoring and evaluation system to track progress toward achieving the project’s global environmental objectives. In addition, this component will support knowledge sharing and dissemination of project findings.
Important project
“The Governments of the states of Bahia and Cear are interested in addressing biodiversity issues and ecosystem management, and the Caatinga is one of their key priorities,” said Claudia Sobrevila, World Bank task manager for the project. “They are creating the institutional structure necessary to address these challenges, and we are glad to be one of the parties involved in this important project,” she added.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a mechanism for providing new and additional grant and concessional funding to meet the agreed incremental costs of measures to achieve agreed global environmental benefits in the six focal areas - climate change; biological diversity; international waters; persistent organic pollutants; land degradation; and ozone layer depletion. GEF also supports the work of the global agreements to combat desertification.
Source: The World Bank
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