In the Media
GEF council members approve 500 mn USD environmental projects
November 11, 2011
New Business Ethiopia
The governing body of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council approved an unprecedented large work program worth half a billion US dollars within the fifth replenishment cycle of the GEF on 9th November 2011.
With 40 stand alone projects and 9 programmatic approaches amounting to 516.40 million US dollars, this work program represents double the average submissions made since its creation 20 years ago. In addition, an impressive amount of 4.1 billion US dollars has been leveraged from GEF partners to further expand the reach of the program.
This work program includes many large-impact projects around the world. For example in China, the Main Streams of Life-Wetland Protected Area System Strengthening for Biodiversity Conservation will create a strong national system for managing 48,962,400 hectares of wetlands, and protect an additional 1.7 million hectares containing 50 unprotected threatened species.
Similarly, the impact of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM/REDD+) projects will in this work program reach proportions never achieved before. Through the involvement of indigenous peoples and local communities these projects alone will save over 3 million tons of CO2 emissions in combating deforestation and forest degradation, while creating 2.5 million hectares of new protected areas, and implement sustainable management regimes across1.3 million hectares more.
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Keywords: blue forest, China, forest management, funding, GEF, Indigenous, REDD, SFM, wetland