Conservation International and the Government of Liberia

Collaboration for a new development pathway

Liberia: a shining light for west Africa and the world

Transition from terrible conflict to “ready for development”

Conservation International and Liberia: partners for 8 years

The opportunity is now

Opportunity for what?

Development based on good management of natural systems

Management for ecosystem service provision:watererosion protection, climate change bufferingMaybe ecotourism

Development will be difficult or impossible without this

How far have we got?

We know what the natural forest asset base consists of:carbon volumebiodiversity distributionmanagement principles

We are working on getting more people involved in this as a business opportunity

Liberia is the most important country in the Guinean Forest Hotspot, containing about 43% of all remaining forest, and most of the interesting biodiversity

The government has shown great foresight in developing the institutions, policy and oversight tools

Forest Development Authority

Environmental Protection Agency

National Forest Policy

Accession to Convention on Biodiversity and Kyoto

National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan

Protected area strategy and draft management plan

What are the opportunities?

“Position Liberia as the regional and global leader in conservation of biodiversityand development based on sound environmental management”

Impacts

Higher international profile

Increased resilience to climate change

Increased investment in natural resource management through Carbon funding and biodiversity conservation

Improved mechanisms for engaging local communities in natural resource management, improving democracy and governance

Regional and global profileMadagascar as an example

Since 2003, Madagascar has based its development strategy on sound environ-mental management, including the tripling of the national protected area network

A trust fund for management of these areashas now passed 50M USD in capitalization

Most new protected areas are community-co-managed

A very high profile on the international stage

Great opportunity for transboundaryWorld Heritage Sites

Everyone is on Liberia’s side!

Probable result:

Increased human pressure leading to natural resource conflicts.

Rainfall in the Sahel will likely be drastically reduced population

migration southwards towards less affected areas such as Liberia.

Sea-level rise as much as 5 meters (due to ice melting) over the next

century is major issue. Predicted inland migration from coastal

communities.

Increase resilience to climate change

How to manage this situation?

Reinforce civil society participation in natural resource management,as a business and development opportunity

Invest in conserving the asset base, to ensure continued yield

Promote good governance through investment in capacity

Engage regionally to demonstrate leadership and foresight

• Liberia’s historic deforestation rate of 0.2-0.4 % per year has been low, but this won’t last

• This deforestation accounts for over 900,000 to 1.8M tCO2 emissions annually (forest to non-forest)

• Process for engagement in carbon markets started

Potential for investment from climate change mitigation

Initial proposed protected area network 1.14 million hectares

Conservative historical deforestation rate (1986-2000 forest to non-forest)

0.038 % per year within the PAN only

Comparable tons CO2/hectare (Winrock Aug 2004 Guinea report)

900 tons CO2 per hectare

(stored in forest biomass)

Percent closed canopy forest in proposed PA network

73 % closed canopy forest

(Omits regrowth and degradation)

Assume 50% reduction in PA network deforestation rate

0.019 % per year

Conservative carbon price estimate $5 - $10 / tCO2

Conservative gross carbon revenue $700,000 - $1,400,000 per year

Potential carbon mitigation yield

Community management of natural resources

Essential to promote democracy, reduce social instability, promote equity and transparency

Considerable challenges in post-conflict areas, but;

Investment mechanisms are the key, seeding money into communities at theappropriate scale and volume

In order to build development on sound environmental management, what have we learned from elsewhere ?

Technical resources: community management of forest; consultation plan fornew protected areas, investment in community structures; biodiversity management

Policy resources: land tenure, forest resource management rules, investmentmechanisms

Further investment:

(in addition to good access to health care, infrastructure, markets and education)

steady long-term and flexible revenue streams to enable communitiesto rebuild their social structures and start the development process for themselves

Secure long-term financing to cover recurrent costs of managing the protected areas network, to sustain biodiversity against impacts of climate change

Above all, strong civil society structures supported and capacitated by governmentand partners

Investment: so far, USAID and World Bank, Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund,Fauna and Flora International, Conservation International, other development partners

New investment opportunities

European Union: are expressing strong interest in regional program

World Bank- Forest Carbon Partnership Facility- proposal submitted

US Government- Matches to HIPIC debt restructuring

French, German and UK governments- protected areas and civil society

Corporates for carbon investment

Debt swap opportunities – capital funds, high profile projects

Diaspora- civil society structures and carbon offsets

US Foundations- capacity building for conservation and development

Conclusions

People need secure access to natural resources for development

Those natural resources are assets that will provide great yields, if managed wisely

Many of these asset values are only now becoming clear

The market is fast-moving and complex

Liberia has the opportunity to become a great regional and global leader

Conservation International will do whatever we can to help