2008 Annual Report
Fund Aims to Preserve Tibetan Conservation Culture
An innovative fund designed to support conservation and sustainable development across the Mountains of Southwest China Hotspot has helped spark a revival in traditional practices and recognition of community-based conservation.
Launched by CI, the CEPF-supported Community Conservation Fund (CCF) is part of an
initiative aimed at revitalizing traditional resource management practices, such as designating certain Tibetan community lands as sacred and untouchable.
Every Tibetan community in China has its own sacred areas that are protected by strict rules. Economic development needs and societal changes, however, are weakening these cultural safeguards, resulting in increased threats to biodiversity.
“Rapid economic development and other outside infl uences are eroding the tradition of
sacred lands,” explains CI-China’s Technical Director Li Zhang. “We designed the CCF as a mechanism to help communities reverse this trend.”
With additional support from the EU-China Biodiversity Programme and CI Indigenous and Traditional Peoples Program, the CCF to date has made 70 grants to support community conservation initiatives, covering 80 percent of the hotspot.
Grants have supported a range of projects including patrolling, rural environmental education and sustainable resource management. Recipients have included Buddhist monks and school teachers. A monk concerned about overharvesting of Tibetan herbs on a sacred mountain next to his village, for instance, used a CCF grant to survey local plant species and then publish an environmental handbook, which is now used in the local school. The monk is also working with herdsmen in the area to protect the mountain.
Zhang said community conservation has proven to be a highly effective tool, and this has enabled CI-China to convince provincial offi cials and leaders in the People’s Congress of the need for legislation recognizing community conservation sites as offi cial protected
areas. Such laws will give community members the legal authority to patrol these areas
and enforce conservation practices.