Biodiversity Conservation: a Guide for Usaid Staff and Partners
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BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION: A GUIDE FOR USAID STAFF AND PARTNERS SEPTEMBER 2005 This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared in cooperation with ARD, Inc., USAID technical staff, and partners. ABOUT THIS GUIDE GOAL The goal of this Guide is to provide USAID staff and partners with basic information about designing, managing, and implementing biodiversity conservation programs or activities. What do you need to know, as a USAID manager, to design, implement, manage, and evaluate a biodiversity conservation program or activity? What are the critical elements of success for biodiversity programs and activities? How can activities be designed that will simultaneously meet USAID administrative and legal requirements while ensuring that development goals are addressed using best conservation practice and approaches? Biodiversity conservation is an evolving, dynamic field, and this Guide serves as a starting point to shape and guide programs or activities that should ultimately be implemented based on local environmental and socioeconomic conditions and capacity of implementing partners, and should be managed adaptively in the field. This Guide is also intended to be a starting point and to provide useful information about USAID’s approach to biodiversity for our partners and colleagues. AUDIENCES The Guide is intended for a broad audience including USAID mission and Washington staff, implementing partners, and multiple stakeholders within and across sectors. For our colleagues in the donor community, we hope that this Guide is useful in understanding the history, approach, and operating mechanisms for biodiversity funding of one of the largest bilateral donors of biodiversity conservation, and to introduce possible opportunities to foster closer donor coordination and explore joint or complimentary programs. We would like to acknowledge all of those individuals and organizations who have assisted the EGAT Biodiversity Team in researching, writing, and reviewing this publication. This Guide was designed and developed by a diversity of USAID technical experts, Agency partners, and funded specialists with the support of ARD, Inc. for the U.S. Agency for International Development and funded under the Biodiversity and Sustainable Forestry Indefinite Quantity Contract (BIOFOR) LAG-I-00-99-00013-00, Task Order 2. For more information, contact Cynthia Gill, Biodiversity Team Leader, (202) 712-4177, [email protected] or Jim Talbot, BIOFOR Project Manager, ARD, Inc, (802) 658-3890, [email protected]. COVER PHOTO: The Congo River, as the fifth longest river in the world, supports both the highly biodiverse ecosystems and the livelihoods of the Congo Basin. Credit: Jeff Dupain, African Wildlife Foundation. BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION: A GUIDE FOR USAID STAFF AND PARTNERS SEPTEMBER 2005 DISCLAIMER The authors’ views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. CONTENTS Preface................................................................................................................................................................. iii I. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................. 1 Principles for Effective Biodiversity Programs......................................................................................2 1.0 Overview of USAID and Biodiversity ...........................................................................................3 2.0 The State and Importance of Biodiversity...................................................................................9 II. CONSERVATION PLANNING ........................................................ 17 3.0 Issues of Scale...................................................................................................................................... 19 4.0 Involving Stakeholders...................................................................................................................... 23 5.0 Analyzing Conservation Threats and Opportunities ........................................................... 28 6.0 Choosing Conservation Priorities............................................................................................... 31 7.0 Designing Activities ........................................................................................................................... 34 8.0 Monitoring, Evaluating, and Managing Adaptively.................................................................. 39 9.0 Financing Conservation.................................................................................................................... 43 III. CONSERVATION APPROACHES ................................................. 49 10.0 Protected Areas.................................................................................................................................. 51 10.1 Community Conserved Areas........................................................................................ 56 10.2 Marine Protected Areas.................................................................................................... 59 10.3 Transboundary Protected Areas.................................................................................... 61 10.4 Private Protected Areas.................................................................................................... 64 11.0 Community-Based Conservation................................................................................................. 66 11.1 Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and Indigenous Areas.................................. 71 11.2 Traditional or Local Ecological Knowledge ............................................................... 73 12.0 Sustainable Use ................................................................................................................................... 76 12.1 Forestry.................................................................................................................................... 82 12.2 Non-Timber Forest Products ......................................................................................... 85 12.3 Agroforestry........................................................................................................................... 89 12.4 Fisheries ................................................................................................................................... 90 12.5 Ecotourism.............................................................................................................................. 93 13.0 Environmental Communication.................................................................................................... 96 14.0 Policy Development and Reform...............................................................................................100 BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION: A GUIDE FOR USAID STAFF AND PARTNERS i IV. CROSS-SECTORAL LINKAGES FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION........................................................................... 107 15.0 Agriculture..........................................................................................................................................109 15.1 Ecoagriculture......................................................................................................................111 15.2 Rangeland Management and Pastoralism ..................................................................114 15.3 Aquaculture..........................................................................................................................116 16.0 Biotechnology....................................................................................................................................118 17.0 Conflict.................................................................................................................................................121 18.0 Conservation Enterprise Development..................................................................................124 19.0 Democracy and Governance.......................................................................................................128 20.0 Global Climate Change..................................................................................................................132 21.0 Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response................................................................135 22.0 Human Population and Health, including HIV/AIDS ..........................................................138 23.0 Nonrenewable Extractive Industry: Energy and Mining....................................................141 24.0 Urban Issues.......................................................................................................................................144 25.0 Watersheds and Water Resources.........................................................................................146 V. USAID PROGRAM INFORMATION ............................................. 149 26.0 Implementing Mechanisms and Partners.................................................................................151 27.0 International Treaties.....................................................................................................................156 28.0 U.S. Legislation..................................................................................................................................163