Going beyond terrestrial PAs

We had decided to limit the evaluation to terrestrial PAs so as to narrow the scope and the nature of the system we are dealing with. However, from interviews in the past week, I have realized that it is worth giving attention to areas beyond terrestrial PAs at a national scale, especially in Uganda. I am sharing this with you in case you find the same issues in your countries, which is quite likely.

Wetlands

I discovered that in Uganda, wetlands are not a part of the PA system. Yet a GEF MSP just finished last year with the aim of creating a new category of PAs--community conservation areas or CCAs--that would place wetlands within the national PA system. An entirely different agency is in charge of wetlands, so it was a good thing I saw this in the project documents and decided to interview that agency, otherwise this story might have been lost. Obviously, none of the other agencies thought to mention it as this was not under their jurisdiction. At present, the Wetland Management Division is in the process of getting a Wetlands Act passed that will classify wetland areas as protected. The other interesting thing I learned was that this MSP that was implemented in 6 communities (considered successful) was a replication of an SGP project in one of the PAs that we will be visiting. The government is now planning to scale up the project by developing an FSP (with cofinancing perhaps from Japan) that will further promote this approach in wetlands across the country.

Areas Outside PAs

Again, we had decided not to include projects that deal mainly with mainstreaming biodiversity conservation in production landscapes. But what everyone keeps saying is that forest cover and biodiversity are decreasing OUTSIDE PAs. And in fact, there are more wildlife and forests outside of the PAs. Another recurring response here is that with the population still expanding, eventually it will be hard to protect the PAs  once people have used up all the resources outside. Here are some video clips on continuing challenges in Uganda's PA system, from my interviews with the Uganda Wildlife Authority.

Fortunately, GEF's more recent projects here involve landscapes and corridors. The project implementers (UNDP and NGOs) sound very optimistic about the outcome, but the terminal evaluation and government tell a different story. The main concern is that livelihood options offered as well as payment for ecosystem services do not provide enough of a long-term incentive to private forest owners to preserve their forests and the biodiversity in it. This seems to make it critical to know the state of biodiversity outside the PAs as well. The TE, for example, said that deforestation actually accelerated during the GEF project, and the reviewers attributed this to unmet promises made to the private forest owners.

My personal concern is that if they're relying on payment for ecosystem services ($27.50 USD/ hectare/ yr, which is not much in itself), what will happen when the money runs out? Who will keep paying the people? The other thing about that is that when you motivate people with money, they will always want more and more. Not because they're greedy (though there is that, too, for some) but because prices of basic necessities will keep going up (and fast!), and the alternative economic incentives for the forest will then grow higher and higher compared to what they are getting paid. It will just be a race to the bottom, a bidding war of who pays the highest price for which use. I personally believe that changing people's mindsets is the key so that the motivation driving conservation is the conviction that forests are important to their future and need to be protected; paying people to secure their own future seems to me like cultivating a feeling of entitlement, i.e. all these foreigners should pay us because they have the money and we're the poor victims. Already these people expect to be paid just to show up to a meeting. But hey, what do I know. I just hope the people who invented Payment for Ecosystem Services know what they are doing and are considering the long-term effects on people's character and attitudes, not just on climate change.

The good news is that a follow-up REDD project that is not funded by GEF (because the government of Uganda did not want to fund it) has taken lessons from the GEF projects on how to make Payment for Ecosystem Services more successful. For example, as part of the revised approach, they are establishing village banks as a source of capital, especially for emergencies, which was the biggest reason people who joined the scheme would cut their forests.

All in all, the story of GEF support in Uganda is a good one. However, the main driver seems to be tourism--if an area has the qualities that can earn revenue, it also attracts support from government, NGOs and donors. Not just that, but it tends to be able to fund itself as well in terms of infrastructure and enforcement. If an area has NO touristic value, then good luck to the wildlife there. Will update this hypothesis after I go visit the PAs.

I saw the same thing in my limited experience in Indonesia--everyone seems to be flocking to the same PA when providing support, to the total neglect of the neighboring one. This appears to be the "Matthew effect", common in complex systems (basically most of real life): For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. (Matthew 25:29). In the meantime, in your respective countries, why do you think some areas attract so much support, while others hardly get any support?

The week in Indonesia

While I was in Indonesia, Tim and I were able to interview one national-level stakeholder, who was from the Directorate General of Conservation Areas in the Ministry of Forestry, and also cover one GEF-supported PA. The week before, we had met with different groups to finalize the PAs to be visited. But it was only during the interview that the people who would be coming with us during the field visit from the Ministries of Forestry and Environment were finally identified so we could book the plane tickets. This was in the afternoon of Monday, and we were targeting to leave early Tuesday morning. To top it off, although Tim and I had decided over the weekend to do a PA that used a private-public partnership model,  the GEF unit staff said during the meeting that it would be better if we went to the sites where the stakeholders were already informed about the evaluation (in fact they were a bit upset that we were thinking of doing the other one that wasn't in the original project list that they received from us). So at that very last minute, we had to change our itinerary as well. I will not go into the sordid details of trying to book a flight for 5 people that was leaving in less than 24 hours, but suffice it to say, I finally got tickets at 930 am when we were supposed to be at the airport by 10 am. What makes the PA visits complicated in Indonesia is that because it is the world's largest archipelago,  you have to fly everywhere, and this particular PA entailed two flights plus a two-hour drive, which by Indonesian PA standards is not too far.

For domestic flights, we had to contact BCD Travel instead of AmEx. Thankfully they had a 24-hour service which was very functional (much more than I can say for AmEx). Instead of getting an interpreter at very short notice, we decided instead to have one of the staff in the GEF coordination unit to translate for us during the trip. This turned out to be a good idea as he had enough background to interpret things in context, and we didn't have to bother with getting a contract done, etc. Below is a summary of my impressions of what we found out during my week in Indonesia:

1) At the national level, GEF seems to be irrelevant as far as terrestrial PAs go. First of all, there is no GEF project at the national level supporting the PA system. The government is very keen to fund their own way as much as they can, but still depend on donors, especially WWF, to do wildlife monitoring and research. International NGOs and other countries have been very influential in shaping how the PA system is managed.

2) At the GEF-supported PA, while nobody knew what GEF was, and this was an MSP so the funding was really very small, the community leaders did say that people became more aware about the importance of preserving the forest because their water supply improved as a consequence of rehabilitating the areas surrounding the PA. Now nobody even uses firewood for cooking. They have started planting nutmeg which both discourages illegal logging and provides income to the communities. A common theme, though, seems to be that the NGOs that have been executing GEF projects do things that are counter to the government's way of doing things. So while the over-all outcome in terms of biodiversity and socioeconomic improvement has been good, the NGOs have ended up being kicked out of the area due to these unresolved differences.

Tim went on another 6-hour drive to visit the comparable non-GEF PA, Buton Utara, while I went back on the two-hour drive and then two flights (6-hour trip) to get back to Jakarta and catch my plane to Uganda.

Below are some of the photos I took to document the evaluation.

Power outage during meeting at Ministry of Forestry while we were deciding where to go

Interview with one of the kecamatan (very local level of government) that was part of the community  forum supported  by GEF

Welcome sign to the protected area of Lambusango in Buton Island, South Sulawesi

Community leaders in another kecamatan, owners of the house we stayed at. Communities have been benefiting from scientific tourism activities that were part of the GEF project run by Operation Wallacea. 

Pearl culture was one of the forms of livelihood introduced  to relieve pressure from timber harvesting.