On the second day of the 26th RedLAC Congress in St. Lucia, special focus was placed on regional projects that help implement the overarching goal of conserving 30 percent of the region’s biodiversity by 2030 in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Guyana’s Senior Director of Climate Change, Pradeepa Bholanath, gave a presentation on the country’s Low Carbon Development Strategy and explained how it supported the implementation of the 30×30 target.
While the strategy is a tool to support Guyana’s goal of growing its economy with low carbon activities, Bholanath said it was important to note that it was the product of extensive research on the country’s flora, fauna, watersheds, and forest carbon.
From 2010 – 2020, the Guyanese Government established a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Norway which provided an estimated USD 220 million in financing for Guyana’s low carbon development strategy with performance indicators against key biodiversity targets.
Bholanath shared, “One of those key indicators was maintaining forest cover, and maintaining intact forests. In Guyana, we define intact forests as maintaining contiguous unbroken blocks of 50,000 hectares or more. This ensures the protection of biodiversity corridors, key watersheds, and indigenous peoples who live within those areas and enjoy the pristine nature of the forests.”
In protecting forests, Bholanath said it helps conserve biodiversity and ensures communities which are dependent on these ecosystems are still able to have a decent standard of living and access to resources that they are stewards of.
She added, “As we are now also an oil and gas producing country, I think – now more than ever – it’s essential that our vision for development, our implementation plans, really surround one and embrace one that is low carbon in nature. I’m glad that we have been able to align our (low carbon development) vision to 2030, because so many important things are happening in 2030.
Expanding protected areas, climate change mitigation and adaptation goals that have to do with carbon markets, climate financing, many important things will be happening, and we’re expecting them to take shape by 2030.”
As the country continues its strategy, focus is being placed on expanding collaborations to include more NGOs and private-sector groups like the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International Guyana.
Bholanath described Conservation International Guyana as “one of the driving forces” supporting the expansion of protected areas in the country and fostering community-level participation.
Sharing pictures of the Karanambu Trust and Lodge in Guyana’s Rupununi Savannah, she noted that is one example of the country’s government working with indigenous communities to co-manage areas.
“In Guyana we have about 242 indigenous villages that have been involved in Guyana’s climate finance program, and these communities see community-level actions financed through the resources from their involvement.
“The government can’t do it alone, we need partners and we need to have the kind of involvement that creates the ownership for protection and developing new ideas.”
Forever Costa Rica helps country meets biodiversity targets
In an interview, Executive Director of the Forever Costa Rica Association, Katy De La Garza, said the organisation was established as a result of a public-private partnership and its focus is to assist the Government of Costa Rica to meet its obligations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Given over 20 percent of the country’s terrestrial areas are protected, she said the organisation and the country’s authorities rely on collaborative networks like RedLAC to ensure that biodiversity targets are met.
“Costa Rica just declared that we went from having 2.7 percent of our marine areas under protection to 30 per cent. With the Government, we (Forever Costa Rica) have fundraised an estimated USD 10 million and we call it Blue Fund Costa Rica and other amazing donors have come to join us.”
La Garza said the Fund has been supported by the Bezos Foundation, ReWild, the Gordon and Moore Foundation and the Wyss Foundation.
With these additional streams of funding and support, La Garza is optimistic it will only help to expand biodiversity conservation efforts in Costa Rica.
“We are helping the Government protect these new oceanic protected areas which are really unique [with many endemic species of flora and fauna].”
La Garza highlighted there is also now a focus on supporting blue and green ventures.
German Development Bank: committed to supporting implementation
Head of the German Development Bank’s (Latin America) Division of Biodiversity and Sustainable Resource Management, Jens Mackensen, said the bank has committed to financing biodiversity conservation efforts in the Latin America and Caribbean region.
The bank is specifically focused on providing blended financing models which can be compatible to the varying conservation needs.
He explained, “I believe that blended financing is a very good tool to ensure that public financing is combined with local efforts and local financing in order to achieve more scale. Blended finance is joining funding in order to have a larger impact and that is what is important.”
As implementation of the global biodiversity framework becomes a priority, Mackensen said it will take cooperation between international institutions like the German Development Bank and local conservation trust funds as it relates to financing projects.
But when it comes to implementing projects, local communities must take the reins.
Caribbean Biodiversity Fund launches 5th Call for Proposals under our Ecosystem-based Adaptation Facility
As the CBF launched its fifth calls for proposals under its ecosystem-based adaptation facility (EbA), on the second day of the RedLAC Congress, the Program Manager, Dr Ulrike Krauss, said the CBF aims to support projects which works in the areas of conservation and ecosystem services for livelihood and climate adaptation.
Krauss said the previous calls by the facility have yielded impactful projects.
“We have one project that has ended by now with ICA (Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture). They successfully managed to engage the private sector and work with the quarry operator where a lot of runoff and sediment was contaminating the reef. And the project inspired an intervention where we planted vetiver grass along the sedimentation pond, so now the sediment is filtered out, the water is clearer.”
The fifth call for proposals is open to organisations in Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Submissions of concept notes is the first stage of the process and the deadline for submission is December 17.
