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St.Petersburg, Russia / Washington DC. - November 23, 2010

Today the Global Environment Facility (GEF) announced at the International Tiger Conservation Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, that it will provide up to $50 million in grants to save the tiger from its current path towards extinction in the wild.

These contributions will be used by developing countries using their GEF allocations in biodiversity, supplemented by investments from its REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) Program. Partnering with the World Bank and other development partners in the Global Tiger Recovery Program, significant cofinancing is expected, including from the private sector and the countries themselves.

“Every time a tiger habitat disappears, it is not just the tiger who is lost. We lose too: ecosystems provide vital services to humans for their own survival. In short, if we allow tigers to go extinct, then our own future as a species hangs in the balance as well”, said Monique Barbut, CEO and Chairperson of the GEF at the high level segment of the International Tiger Forum.

A joint strategic approach will be implemented with the tiger range countries being in the leadership of action through the approved Global Tiger Recovery Plan.

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The GEF has provided financial support to the International Tiger Forum organized by the Government of the Russian Federation, in partnership with the World Bank. This renewed commitment follows past investments by the GEF in a number of countries in support of projects that protected or restored habitats for the tiger and other globally threatened species. 

This major contribution complements the recently launched “Save Our Species” (SOS) initiative, a partnership between the GEF, the World Bank and IUCN to attract private sector investments in species conservation and expected to become one of the largest and most comprehensive fund to protect globally threatened species.

 

Related GEF Projects

  • NEPAL: Landscape-scale Conservation of Endangered Tiger and Rhinoceros Populations in and Around Chitwan National Park
    This project has been closed in 2006. The project's objective was to promote landscape level biodiversity conservation with strong community-based management links to conserve endangered species in and around the Royal Chitwan National Park. This was achieved by conserving and rehabilitating the only existing corridor forest (Barandhbar forest) linking the Royal Chitwan National Park, a World Heritage site in the lowland of Nepal, to ecologically significant upland forests in the Mahabharat range. Rural communities in Nepal rely heavily on natural resources for their livelihoods, so a strong socio-economic component was proposed to reduce the human impact in addressing ecological problems. This project concentrated on the grass root level activities that address the needs of local people by promoting biodiversity oriented economic incentives and generating guardianship for the wildlife and their habitat preservation. This project aimed at adapt the Baghmara and Kumrose models of community-managed forests, which have proven to be successful in neutralizing the dependency of local people on forest resources and preventing habitat loss resulting from excessive utilization of resources.
     
  • GLOBAL: Tiger Futures: Mainstreaming Conservation in Large Landscapes
    This project has been approved in 2008 and will address the major threats to tiger conservation, and the large natural landscapes on which they depend, through three interlinked components. The project will provide a framework for collaborative efforts between the range states (and the national and international NGOs working within them) and complement national efforts targeted to individual sites. As part of the project the World Bank will organize high-level Country Dialogue Workshops in each of the range states to build political commitment and transboundary cooperation. The project will perform comprehensive analyses of the current financing situation across the range states, examining the current expenditures, the needs, how to cover the gaps, and provide guidance and strategies for mobilizing new sources of funding. Since the trade in tiger parts is a serious threat, the project will specifically target capacity building in the relevant national agencies to address international trafficking of wildlife; this will complement ongoing efforts to strengthen protection and enforcement at tiger reserves. Transnational consultations and workshops will support development of common and agreed strategies and monitoring frameworks so that the range states can report progress at regional meetings such as ASEAN. The project is designed to encourage early action for greater country and regional commitment and to specifically address regional capacity needs in relation to curbing wildlife trade, a major threat to tigers and their prey.
     
  • RUSSIAN FEDERATION: Support to the Global Tiger Summit Hosted by the Russian Federation

 

Additional sources of information

 

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