Description

The Project objective will be achieved by using a multi-focal strategy that includes the development of a national enabling environment (i.e. policy/legal framework, availability and access to information, capacities, technologies, and finance mechanisms) for delivering multiple global environmental benefits in four interrelated outcomes:

1. Strengthened institutional framework for protected areas, biodiversity conservation and SLM/CSA;
2. Effective management of new and existing Pas;
3. Integrated watershed management measures in R2R setting incorporating sustainable livelihood opportunities and;
4. Knowledge management for SLM, CSA and biodiversity conservation. The GEF investment will address the drivers of biodiversity loss (habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation due primarily to unsustainable land use practices and human encroachment, threats that are further compounded by the impacts of climate change and IAS) that will reduce biodiversity loss and land degradation both within PAs and within the mixed-use landscape. The project will deliver global environmental benefits using a participatory approach and ensuring the equal distribution of benefits among men and women, with 346 benefiting from the Project, and resulting in the consolidation and strengthened protection of a 13,214 ha terrestrial PA covering the entire upper watersheds of St Vincent and 7 Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs), providing landscape connectivity to a 2183 ha marine park through a ridge to reef approach and improving protection of at minimum 63 ha of the sole remaining habitat of a critically endangered (CR) single island endemic.

Project Outputs:

• Strengthening institutional frameworks for protected areas, biodiversity conservation and SLM/CSA; 
• Effective management of new and existing Protected Areas;
• Integrated watershed management measures in Ridge to Reef setting incorporating sustainable livelihood opportunities;
• Knowledge management for SLM, CSA and biodiversity conservation.

Additional Information:

• Funding: $3,757,102 USD
• Start date: January 1^st , 2020
• End date: January 1^st , 2024
• Implementing Partner: Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Transformation, Forestry, Fisheries, Industry and Labour