This ecosystem profile and five-year investment strategy for the Eastern Himalayas Region is based on a priority-setting analysis of a suite of conservation outcomes for the region developed by BirdLife International. Four regional, expert roundtable consultations and resource documents commissioned from regional civil society organizations (Aaranyak 2003, ATREE 2003, CEE 2003) helped to develop the full set of conservation outcomes.
BirdLife International organized the regional expert roundtables in collaboration with WWF, the Centre for Environmental Education (CEE) and the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). These roundtables, held in Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Assam, were attended by 147 participants from Nepal, Bhutan, India and outside the region representing various institutions that included a range of local, regional, and international civil society organizations and scientific and government institutions. Consultants were also hired to collect, collate and prepare background reports on socioeconomic factors, the institutional context and conservation efforts in Nepal, Bhutan and northeast India.
WWF used this suite of conservation outcomes in an analysis to identify priorities for CEPF investments, as detailed in this ecosystem profile. The analysis took into account input from additional expert consultations, literature, and donor portfolio reviews, and results from previous conservation priority-setting exercises for the Eastern Himalayas Region (Basnet et al. 2000, Dorji 2000, Joshi 2000, Khaling et al. 2000, Myint et al. 2000, Pradhan and Bhujel 2000, Rastogi 2000, Shrestha and Joshi 1997,UNDP 1998, Wikramanayake et al. 1998a, WWF and ICIMOD 2001, Yonzon 2000a).
This ecosystem profile includes a commitment and emphasis on using conservation outcomes—targets against which the success of conservation investments can be measured—as the scientific underpinning for determining CEPF’s geographic and thematic focus for investment. CEPF recognizes that it cannot achieve all of the outcomes identified for a region on its own; thus, it places emphasis on forging partnerships for conservation investments to create a synergy when working to prevent biodiversity loss.
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