AsianScientist (Sep. 6, 2011) – A nearly US$30 million grant from USAID will underwrite a five-year program led by WWF-Nepal that will mobilize the efforts of international and local NGOs to protect critical forests and forest dependent communities in Nepal.
WWF will contribute a cost share in the amount of approximately US$7.5 million, bringing the total program amount to approximately US$37.4 million.
Titled “Hariyo Ban Nepal ko Dhan” (Healthy Green Forests are the Wealth of Nepal), the program aims to achieve its goals through three linked areas of work: biodiversity conservation, sustainable landscapes, and climate adaptation.
WWF-Nepal will lead a consortium that consists of global humanitarian organization Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), as well two NGOs, the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) and the Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN), and 24 other organizations.
The aid will be focused around the Terai Arc Landscape in southern Nepal and the north-south Chitwan-Annapurna Landscape running from the high Himalayas to the Terai.
The Terai Arc Landscape is among the most biologically important regions on earth, where the world’s tallest grasslands and adjacent riverine forests support the world’s highest densities of tigers, and the second largest population of greater one-horned rhinoceros.
The Chitwan-Annapurna Landscape straddles the world’s deepest gorge and borders a major biogeographic boundary where the western Himalayas end and the Eastern Himalaya begins.
Millions of people from diverse ethnic groups live in these two landscapes and significant numbers depend on forests and subsistence agriculture for their livelihoods.
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Source: WWF-Nepal.
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