Mexico:US$7.35 Million GEF Grant for National Protected Areas

On June 28 the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a supplemental US$7.35 million grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for Mexico to promote the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity through the consolidation of the National Protected Areas System.

The new grant for the Consolidation of the Protected Areas System (SINAP II) Project will be used to further capitalize the endowment of the protected areas fund under the Mexican Fund for Nature Conservation and add four new protected areas to the program. The new protected areas include: “La Encrucijada” in Chiapas state, “El Pinacate Gran Desierto del Altar” in Sonora state, “Sierra La Laguna” in Baja California Sur state, and “Banco Chinchorro” in Quintana Roo state.

“The endowment fund in Mexico is considered a successful model, particularly in Latin America, and studied and lessons learned are replicated in similar initiatives in the region and globally,” said Yoko Watanabe, Program Manager in Biodiversity at the GEF Secretariat.

In particular, the project will support the following activities:

* Conserving globally important biodiversity in selected areas of the National Protected Areas System through an endowment fund;
* Promoting the economic, social and environmental sustainability of productive activities in selected protected areas;
* Promoting social co-responsibility for conservation; and
* Supporting the inclusion of biodiversity conservation and sustainable criteria in development projects and other practices affecting selected protected areas.

“The project will institutionalize significant advances made over the past five years toward the conservation of protected areas in Mexico,” said Adriana Moreira, World Bank task manager for the project. “It will also support new activities of social participation and biodiversity mainstreaming for sustainable use, addressing not only the immediate causes of biodiversity loss, but also some of the root causes.”

The SINAP II Project was originally approved by the Board of Directors in February 2002, and a commitment was made to finance the project under an innovative multi-tranched structure with a total final grant amount of US$31.1 million. The total cost of the project is US$60.12 million. The first tranche of US$16.1 million included US$7.5 million endowment funds to cover the basic conservation of four protected areas. The second tranche of US$2.21 million was endorsed in July 2004 to support basic conservation in the Sierra de Alamos in Sonora. The new US$7.35 million grant is the third tranche. The project is expected to close by June 30, 2010. -The World Bank