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.
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?
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
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?
