An Overview Of Our Solution
The Sustainable Conservation Concession Agreement--- China Model
Who is this solution impacting?
Ecosystem
Oceanos/Costa
Ambiente Urbano/Construído
Community Type
Suburbano
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Ásia
Problem
Describe the problem
Conservation concessions, a variation of the widely applied “conservation easement†tool, is a novel approach to conservation that creates a market incentive mechanism for conservation by providing financial compensation to resource users who agree to stop exploiting targeted resources. Under conservation concession agreement( CCA), concessionaires pay for the right to preserve a given area of land in the same way that a developer might pay for the right to build a dam on it or extract its resources. From 2006, GEI’s firs pilot project of CCA has been executed in Sichuan, China, a protect area of Panda. GEI signed CCAs with four hydropower stations & established local Fund with the PES by the four stations.
Biodiversity Impact
GEI’s CCA project helped local communities to register farmers’ cooperative to manage the local fund. The farmer’s cooperative hired 30 local people to monitor and patrol in the conservation area. With the financial support of local fund, the farmers’ cooperative developed community substitute livelihood project to reduce their traditional activities which is negatively affected ecosystem health. The hydropower stations’ PES is paid every year, so the local fund can be run in a sustainable way.
Solution
In China, nature reserves cover 18% of the total territory of the nation. However, there are serious imbalance regarding species covered by the nature reserves and the geographic distribution of nature reserves. In addition, there are a series of management problems regarding the management of natural reserves in China. Problems such as limited funding source, lacking of proper management, serious land tenure conflict between de jure and de facto land tenure, and conflict between conservation and community livelihood etc. have afflicted lots of natural reserves. GEI designed and implemented CCA project to explore a new conservation model in China. CCA is a way to provide compensation to resource owners who forgo the economic value of the nature resource for conservation. It is one of the approaches of conservation easement. The detailed implementation process is to have the resource owners and the third party to sign an agreement to provide funding or resources to the resource owner for them to forgo the right to use local natural resources. In local community, CCA project significantly improved local biodiversity condition, recover local ecosystem, implement community development projects, increased local peopleƒ??s living condition, reduced the pressure of economic development on natural resources, promoted local peopleƒ??s voluntary participation in conservation through community development, promoted corporate social responsibility, launched environment education to enhance local awareness regarding environment protection. // By the end of 2009, the project successfully conserved 7,156 hectares of forest, conserving 3.191 million cubic meters of water and guaranteeing electricity production for the hydropower stations on the Baoxing River. Hunting, medicine collection and illegal logging virtually disappeared. In addition, the agreement guarantees the conservation of around 40,000 hectares in the nature reserveƒ??s periphery, supporting the ecological health of the Baoxing Panda Sanctuary, a World Heritage Site spanning 2,230km2 Pollination by over 500 beehives installed by the project has enriched biodiversity and genetic diversity in the nature reserve, and the 420 biogas digesters prevented 1,263m3 of wood from being logged and reduced 2,262 tons ofCO2 emissions.
Replicability
How many years has your solution been applied? 6 years // Have others reproduced your solution elsewhere? Yes // GEI cooperates with enterprises to develop PES model and establish local fund. GEI help local farmers to establish cooperative to executive the project. The whole picture of the project is: (See graphic)
Human Well Being and Livelihood Impact
Biogas program: Through the SCCA project, a total of 420 biogas digesters were constructed, distributed over the Linguan, Muping & Qiaoqi townships, reducing an annual 2 million tons of firewood combustion & 230 tons of CO2 emissions. Rabbit Rearing program: Following the earthquake in 2008, China, GEI performed an investigation on the rabbit breeding project. The local government observed no technical obstacles to scaling up the breeding project, but felt the risk was high in supporting a widely distributed community breeding effort, especially since enthusiasm for rabbit rearing fell following the earthquake. GEI followed the government’s recommendation of supporting large, specified breeding facilities—currently two facilities of more than 500 rabbits generate a total production value of RMB 200,000 (USD29,200). Honeybee program: The SCCA project offered support to the honeybee breeding in the form of a RMB100,000 (USD14,600) micro-credit loan, among which, the Fengtongzhai Nature Reserve contributed RMB50,000 (USD7,300) & the SCCA project contributed RMB50,000. Around 500 honeybees were purchased for more than 150 households, increasing annual income by an average of RMB1,500 (USD220). By July 30, 2009, the RMB50,000 from the SCCA contribution was paid back. From September 2009, the SCCA honeybee project was extended to 1,000 hives, with production value estimated at 500,000 RMB (USD73,000). Of the total 1,100, 303 are distributed in two breeding bases that are co-reared by 101 families & managed by the Lüyuan Farmers cooperative. // GEI cooperated with central and local government to develop relative policy to support the project. As the local partner of GEI’s CCA project, FengTongZhai Natural Reserve Bureau is responsible for the monitoring of whole process of the project. Mr. Wei Dong, the director of FengTongZhai Natural Reserve, is GEI’s CCA local executive officer. His phone number is 00-86-835-6826492. Mr. Fugui Yang, Local government officer, is responsible for coordination of CCA project. His cell phone number is 00-86-13908166578.