Contacts:
World Bank: Mauro Azeredo (+55 61) 3329-1059
mazeredo@worldbank.org
GEF: Clare Fleming (202) 458-4679
cfleming@worldbank.org WASHINGTON, June 26, 2007 —The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved a US$10 million grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to Brazil’s Fundação Luiz Eduardo Magalhães to contribute to the preservation, conservation, and sustainable management of the biodiversity of the Caatinga forest in the states of Bahia and Ceará, while improving the quality of life of its inhabitants. “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 forest -located between the Amazon forest and the Atlantic forest in Brazil’s northeast- is the largest dry forest in South America and one of the richest dry forests in the world. Comprising an area of approximately 800,000 km², it covers approximately 11 percent of the national territory, extending throughout the states of Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe, Bahia, and Minas Gerais. In the last two decades, desertification has advanced quickly, caused by the removal of vegetation through charcoal production, over-farming, over-grazing, soil erosion, and slash-and-burn by smallholder farmers and ranchers. Desertification has resulted in disruptions of water flows and poor quality of water sources, which in turn affects the health of human and animal populations. Rural poverty is deep, with the poor surviving through short-cycle types of subsistence farming, animal breeding in extensive systems, extractive activities (wood and non-timber products), temporary farm employment, and seasonal migration to urban areas. The Caatinga Conservation and Management Project will support the states of Bahia and Ceará, 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. 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: • Strengthening local institutions committed to integrated ecosystem management and conservation of the Caatinga biome in Bahia and Ceará. • 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; and introduction of soil and water management practices. • 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. “The governments of the states of Bahia and Ceará 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.
The World Bank Group is one of GEF’s implementing agencies and supports countries in preparing GEF co-financed projects and supervising their implementation. The Bank plays the primary role in ensuring the development and management of investment projects. The Bank draws upon its investment experience in eligible countries to promote investment opportunities and to mobilize private sector, bilateral, multilateral, and other government and non-government sector resources that are consistent with GEF objectives and national sustainable development strategies.
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For further information on Bank’s GEF program, visit http://www.worldbank.org/gef. For further information on GEF, visit http://www.gefweb.org. For more information on the World Bank’s work in Brazil, please visit: http://www.worldbank.org/br |
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