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Strengthening National Capacities for the Operationalization, Consolidation, and Sustainability of Belizes Protected Areas System
Strengthening National Capacities for the Operationalization, Consolidation, and Sustainability of Belizes Protected Areas System
January 5, 2019
| The project was designed to: safeguard globally significant terrestrial, coastal, and marine biodiversity of Belize. The project objective is that by July 2013, Belize will have effectively developed legal, financial, and institutional capacities to ensure sustainability of the existing NPAS. This objective will be achieved through three interrelated outcomes that will generate the flow of global-, national-, and local-level benefits for: a) enhanced protection of over 1.22 million ha of terrestrial, coastal, and marine ecosystems, including 546,904 ha of lowland broadleaf forests, 195,844 ha of sub-mountain broadleaf forests, and 17,075 ha of mangroves; b) improved management effectiveness for 28 PAs (3 Forest Reserves, 7 Marine Reserves, 4 National Monuments, 5 National Parks, 2 Natural Reserves, 4 Private Protected Areas, and 3 Sanctuaries); 2 c) an increase in the financial capacity of Belize’s NPAS by 30%, which is currently at 26.4% as measured through the total average score for all PAs in the UNDP Financial Scorecard, including an increase of annual government budgeting for PAs from $2.3 million USD to $2.9 million USD per year and doubling the income generated by nongovernmental sources for eight participating PAs; and d) a national training program to sustain long-term capacity building for PAs that will be developed to train staff from 20 co-managed PAs in management and business plan development, administration, and financial planning, as well as 90 staff from the PAs’ administrative body in PA management and monitoring techniques. |