CEPF Investment Strategy and Priorities

Program Focus

The CEPF program focus in the Eastern Himalayas Region is based on a subset of biogeographical priorities for biodiversity conservation—species, site and corridor outcomes—that are considered priorities for CEPF investment; an urgency to abate threats to biodiversity; socioeconomic realities; institutional capacity of civil society in the region; and an assessment of current investments, funding gaps and opportunities in the region.

Government institutions and civil society are active in conservation in the region, but often lack coordinated action and capacity to implement biodiversity programs. CEPF can build on existing programs to strengthen the role of communities in biodiversity conservation. This includes empowering local and national NGOs and local communities to participate in natural resource management and to promote customary and usufruct rights to land managed under traditional, sustainable regimes that support important biodiversity. Civil society can play an active role in restoring degraded corridors with such traditional and contemporary land management to link existing protected areas and create reserve networks.

Although protected areas are the cornerstones of biodiversity conservation, the current investments for protection and species management have been meager, relative to investments in community development in buffer zones and other areas within corridor outcomes. CEPF can strengthen protected areas in priority landscapes by supporting these sites. CEPF can also support field research and biological surveys through civil society—preferably through civil society-government partnerships—to enable more effective conservation planning and decisionmaking.

Strategic Directions

Four strategic directions and associated investment priorities were identified for CEPF investment based on the consultations during expert roundtable consultations, other discussions with civil society and governmental stakeholders, and from background research commissioned through consultants (Table 7). The strategic directions are underlain by scientific principles of conservation biology, especially with ecological and demographic needs that warrant landscape-scale approaches to conservation of priority, wide-ranging species in the region.

Table 7. Strategic Directions and Investment Priorities for CEPF in the Eastern Himalayas Region

CEPF Strategic Directions	CEPF Investment Priorities
1.  Build on existing landscape conservation initiatives to maintain and restore connectivity and to protect wide-ranging threatened species in priority corridors with a particular emphasis on the Bhutan Biological Conservation Complex, Kangchenjunga-Singalila Complex, and North Bank Landscape	1.1  Identify important habitat linkages between site outcomes in the priority corridors.
	1.2  Engage civil society in developing and implementing management plans for key habitat linkages.
	1.3  Support targeted conservation education and awareness programs among communities, schools, journalists and decisionmakers in priority corridors.
	1.4  Promote forest management practices that benefit biodiversity conservation in the priority corridors.
2.  Secure the conservation of priority site outcomes (key biodiversity areas) in the eastern Himalayas with a particular emphasis on the Bhutan Biological Conservation Complex, Kangchenjunga-Singalila Complex, and North Bank Landscape	2.1  Support targeted efforts to manage, protect and monitor site outcomes (key biodiversity areas).
	2.2  Provide incremental support to effective, ongoing alternative livelihood projects with local communities that ease threats to and enhance conservation of priority sites.
	2.3  Support traditional land- and resource-use practices in projects that will ensure effective conservation of priority sites.
3.  Leverage partnerships among donor agencies, civil society and government institutions to achieve priority biodiversity conservation outcomes over the long term.	3.1  Strengthen and support government and civil society partnerships that result in new funding for achieving conservation outcomes in the eastern Himalayas.
	3.2  Support training programs to protect, manage and monitor species, sites and corridor outcomes.
	3.3  Develop and strengthen capacity among grassroots civil society organizations to manage, monitor, and mitigate threats to biodiversity.
	3.4  Support transboundary initiatives for conservation of wide-ranging species that require collaboration across international borders.
4.  Develop a small grants program to safeguard globally threatened species in the eastern Himalayas	4.1  Support targeted, high-impact projects to conserve Critically Endangered and endemic species.
	4.2  Support action-oriented research to enable or improve the conservation of priority species outcomes.
	4.3  Implement a monitoring program for priority species outcomes.
	4.4  Support conservation assessments of lesser-known taxonomic groups (plants, invertebrates, fish) for inclusion into the IUCN Red List.

1. Build on existing landscape conservation initiatives to maintain and restore connectivity and to protect wide-ranging threatened species in priority corridors with a particular emphasis on the Bhutan Biological Conservation Complex, Kangchenjunga-Singalila Complex, and North Bank Landscape.
The Eastern Himalayas Region contains globally important populations of several landscape species, such as the tiger, Asian elephant, snow leopard, clouded leopard, greater one-horned rhinoceros, takin and large birds such as vultures, hornbills and adjutants. These species cannot be contained and conserved within the bounds of small, isolated protected areas; instead their best chance for long-term survival is through a metapopulation conservation strategy where dispersal and migration routes link core populations within protected areas. Several smaller birds that undertake altitudinal migrations also cannot be effectively conserved within small sites. These migrations and dispersal events, together with the hydrologic regimes represent important ecological processes that depend on habitat connectivity.

Creating, restoring, and conserving landscapes by linking the core protected areas, or site outcomes, within the larger corridors to allow dispersal and migration of focal species will require involvement of civil society since many areas within the corridors are used or owned by civil society groups. CEPF will support civil society to focus their work for the Eastern Himalayas towards building momentum in the lesser-funded landscapes such as North Bank, Kanchenjunga –Singalila and Bhutan biological corridors in the region.

1.1. Identify important habitat linkages between site outcomes in four of the priority corridors
The priority corridors for the Terai Arc Landscape have been identified, but the corridor outcomes for all other landscapes represent initial assessments and approximations based on expert opinions and cursory examination of remotely sensed data. GIS analyses coupled with field surveys and ground verification is now necessary to better define and delineate these corridors and their suitability as dispersal and migration routes for the priority landscape species in the North Bank, Kaziranga-Karbi Anlong, and Kangchenjunga-Singalila landscapes. These and the Bhutan Biological Corridor Complex also require further analyses and definition of the corridors using more recent remote-sensed data to establish a baseline for monitoring and restoration of critical degraded linkages. These analyses will provide the scientific basis for the configuration of the corridor outcomes, and should be done within the next three years since habitat loss and fragmentation is rapid, especially in the northeast Indian states.

1.2. Engage civil society in developing and implementing management plans for key habitat linkages
Throughout the Eastern Himalayas Region, traditional village-level and other community-level institutions have played dominant roles in protecting community resources. Even today, most local communities are heavily dependent on forest products, natural resources and ecological services for their livelihoods and for daily subsistence. In many areas, although local people have used the land and resources for generations, national laws do not usufruct rights; thus land tenure is undefined and the rights are uncertain. As resource demands grow and these communities become more integrated socially and politically, the laws of the land begin to have more influence than the traditional rights and customs. The assimilation into the broader socioeconomic and political framework causes a disintegration of the traditional sustainable management and harvest regimes, especially if the traditional rights and sense of ownership are perceived as being at risk. This is especially true in some of the northeastern Indian states, notably Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and Nagaland, and in the Nepal Terai, where the local people and communities have had traditional rights over forestlands for generations.

The corridor outcomes and several sites will, in most cases, consist of lands under community forestry, joint forest management, agroforestry, leasehold forestry, plantations and other traditional land-use regimes that are managed or owned by civil society groups. An important strategic direction for CEPF would be to support and strengthen the traditions of local communities and CBOs in conservation, especially within the context of landscape conservation.

Thus, CEPF should support civil society to facilitate and conduct conservation initiatives in the landscape matrices by managing land and adopting land-use practices that are compatible with conservation objectives. This could galvanize other funding agencies to adopt holistic approaches to biodiversity conservation. CEPF funding to civil society is also likely to leverage large support from larger bilateral and multilateral partners as exemplified in the Terai Arc.

1.3. Support targeted conservation education and awareness programs among communities, schools, journalists and decisionmakers in priority corridors
An awareness campaign to highlight the need to conserve biodiversity in traditional and community lands in the face of increasing anthropogenic threats can help to bring about a renewed cognizance of the consequences of unsustainable harvests and extraction levels. Informed civil society advocacy groups can also advocate for changes in policy, against detrimental projects, unsuitable land use and land acquired illegally by outside interests. Thus, CEPF can support local capacity building to train environmental journalists and to form community-based groups, community ecoclubs and nature clubs in schools to educate others and raise awareness. All priority corridors and site outcomes within priority corridors should be eligible for funding.

Some existing and planned investments by other donors, especially in Nepal, include building capacity of civil society to participate in decisionmaking about community rights and access to management of natural resources. Although information on the extent of similar investment in northeastern India is unavailable, it is likely that some may be present. Regardless, CEPF’s niche should be to raise awareness about and the ability to participate in biodiversity conservation for economic and ecological service-related benefits as well as ethical and stewardship reasons. The latter is an important cultural and religious component of the tribal people in the region who still comprise the majority of the population in the hill states.

1.4 Promote forest management practices that benefit biodiversity conservation in the priority corridors
The well-managed forest patches under community ownership in northeast India are testimony to the success of community initiatives in forest management conceived by the indigenous societies and have evolved through ages of practice. These viable systems include the sacred forests and groves of Meghalaya and Manipur, the village safety and supply reserves in Mizoram and Tripura and in the community-held forests of Arunachal Pradesh. Unfortunately, however, the protection these forests have enjoyed for centuries is being eroded by increased demand for resources; perceived loss of traditional rights; cultural, economic and political integration; and in-migration and settlement by outsiders.

In Nepal, community forestry is of relatively more recent origin. But the economic benefits that accrue to the local communities has established the practice as a favorable land management regime by local communities, and recognized by state laws. Community forestry is also a management tool that can help to conserve biodiversity, especially in the buffer zones of protected areas and corridors. Thus, appropriate policy changes that recognize usufruct rights can ensure continued conservation of land held and managed under traditional rights. Precedence for this has already been established in Arunachal Pradesh, where the government and the land-owning tribes of Arunachal Pradesh jointly manage the forest resources under the Arunachal Pradesh Anchal Forest Reserve (Constitution and Maintenance) Act in 1975 that provides for revenue sharing between the government and Anchal Samitis.

CEPF can empower local communities by supporting development and implementation of conservation plans based on traditional and cultural conservation practices in the priority landscape and site outcomes. The North Bank Landscape, Kanchenjunga-Singalila Complex, and sites in northeast India are some of the outcomes where traditional forestry practices can enhance biodiversity conservation. In the Terai Arc Landscape, Bhutan Biological Conservation Complex and the sites in Nepal outside landscapes, contemporary practices such as community forestry are viable options.

2. Secure conservation of priority site outcomes (key biodiversity areas) in the eastern Himalayas with a particular emphasis on sites in the Bhutan Biological Conservation Complex, Kangchenjunga-Singalila Complex, and North Bank Landscape.
The Eastern Himalayas Region contains globally important sites supporting globally threatened species that only occur in those sites, or are one of few sites that are known to contain globally important populations of such species. For instance, Namdapha National Park in Arunachal Pradesh is the only site in the world known to support Namdapha flying squirrel and one of only two sites known to support the snowy-throated babbler, or Orang, which is the only site from where the Orang sticky frog has been recorded. World Heritage sites such as Kaziranga, Manas and Chitwan national parks harbor globally important populations of the greater one-horned rhinoceros, tigers, pygmy hog and several globally threatened birds. The populations of these species represent important core populations from which to increase the global populations through translocations or by providing additional habitat through landscape conservation to either augment smaller populations or establish founder populations. These key sites have to be secured through appropriate conservation and protection measures.

2.1. Support targeted efforts to manage, protect and monitor key biodiversity areas (site outcomes)
Protected areas play a critical role in in situ conservation and represent the core areas of larger, landscape-scale conservation initiatives. If core populations of Endangered species cannot be effectively protected within such sites, their future will not be assured. Since an important conservation goal for CEPF is to assure the future of these species outcomes, support for better management and protection of these site outcomes that represent core habitat and refuges should be a priority.

Many protected areas are managed by government institutions, which are usually under-resourced and understaffed. Consequently, they lack effective management mechanisms. Non-protected key sites (e.g., Ada Lake, Teesta-Rangit Valley, Siroi, Rongrengiri, Siju Caves, Jatinga) should be managed to conserve and protect the globally threatened species they harbor, either by empowering and engaging local communities, declaring them as protected areas and thus placing the management onus on the responsible government institutions, or an arrangement where both government and local communities manage the sites jointly.

CEPF should support partnerships and institutional mechanisms that will help to develop an adequately trained cadre in government sectors as well as stakeholders within civil society who are directly involved in natural resources management in key sites. Support for training will enhance capacity of a staff capable of multi-tasked jobs such as anti-poaching, social forestry, park management and protection, field research and community motivation.

2.2. Provide incremental support to effective, ongoing alternative livelihood projects with local communities that ease threats to and enhance conservation of priority sites
Despite the sustainable nature of traditional natural resource management practices, the rising population levels inevitably lead to increasing resource use and extraction rates. Eventually the extraction rates will exceed the sustainable use thresholds. Both in the hills and lowlands—whether in forests or grassland meadows—the sizes of domestic livestock herds have grown considerably over the past few decades. As a result habitat degradation has become widespread. Alpine meadows rich in plant diversity are becoming eroded, with consequences ranging from loss of biodiversity to landslides. Forests have lost all undergrowth and capacity to regenerate. Extraction of fuelwood, timber, medicinal plants and other forest products from these stressed ecosystems will inevitably lead to their collapse as functioning, natural communities. Since human communities also depend on these forests, the socioeconomic consequences are also obvious. Several donors are already investing in promoting alternative livelihoods among communities in the region. CEPF’s focus should be to promote alternatives that can ease pressure on natural systems, but with direct economic links to conservation of biodiversity, such as ecotourism, horticulture, and other cottage industries that utilize materials harvested from forests and depend on the well-being of the forests and other ecosystems. Support can take the form of complementing and coordinating with current investments. Filling this niche will ensure the explicit link between these alternative livelihoods and conservation, which other donors often under-emphasize.

All the sites identified as site outcomes are potential candidates for CEPF investment.

2.3. Support traditional land- and resource-use practices in projects that will ensure effective conservation of priority sites
Throughout the Eastern Himalayas Region, traditional village-level and other community-level institutions have played dominant roles in protecting community resources. Even today, most local communities are heavily dependent on forest products, natural resources and ecological services for their livelihoods and for daily subsistence. But in many areas the laws of the land have begun to gain authority over traditional rights and customs and traditional usufruct and land tenure rights have become uncertain, even though the local people have been using the land and resources for generations. The assimilation into the broader socioeconomic and political framework has also begun a disintegration of the traditional sustainable management and harvest regimes, especially if the traditional rights and sense of ownership are perceived as being at risk. This is especially true in some of the northeastern Indian states, notably Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and Nagaland, and in the Nepal Terai, where the local people and communities have had traditional rights over forestlands for generations.

The sites outcomes under traditional use regimes and land tenure, community forestry, joint forest management, agroforestry, leasehold forestry, plantations and other regimes that are managed or owned by civil society groups should be targets for CEPF investment. Funds can be provided to strengthen and even resurrect or revive the traditions of local communities and CBOs in conservation, especially within the context of site and corridor conservation.

3. Leverage partnerships among donor agencies, civil society and government institutions to achieve biodiversity conservation outcomes over the long term
The conservation outcomes analysis showed that a large number of important species and sites fall outside of protected areas. Many species also require a landscape approach for effective conservation. Local communities directly or indirectly manage these unprotected sites and corridors. Thus, there is a need to build capacity within local, grassroots-level communities to manage natural resources at levels that can sustain biodiversity and enable conservation, while also providing livelihoods. But in doing so, there is also a need to build capacity within communities and government institutions to monitor and assess threats and unsustainable harvest or extraction levels. Effective conservation outside protected areas, and especially at landscape scales, requires much greater collaboration among a diverse group of partners and stakeholders, with a good understanding of common conservation objectives. Many civil society organizations and government agencies lack financial, technical, and institutional capacity to co-manage high biodiversity areas outside formally protected areas; thus presenting a great opportunity for CEPF to support development of partnerships and local stewardship of these areas. CEPF can also leverage funds from other, larger projects to implement mitigation and conservation measures. In a bid to strengthen and catalyze synergies between government agencies and community groups, CEPF can support joint measures to prevent poaching, illegal logging, and unsustainable or illegal trade in wildlife and timber.

3.1 Strengthen and support government and civil society partnerships that result in new funding for achieving conservation outcomes in the eastern Himalayas
Effective conservation of priority species and management of corridors require collaboration between communities and government institutions. For example, poaching, illegal timber extraction, medicinal plant harvest, and related trade have been identified as important, overarching issues that threaten biodiversity in the region. Often these activities are carried out or sponsored by interests outside the local communities. And often government departments are unable to implement effective policing systems because of a lack of resources and intelligence networks. Supporting joint community and government anti-poaching and informant networks was considered to be an important contribution CEPF could make. The collaborative efforts will also result in new funding (CEPF funds can leverage larger funds from both government and nongovernmental donors) as well as closer ties between government and civil society organizations.

All priority corridor and site outcomes are eligible. The sites and corridors that harbor important populations of Endangered species such as the tiger, Asian elephant, greater one-horned rhinoceros, snow leopard and turtles are especially important in this regard. Support to civil society to develop partnership plans with donors and government in managing landscape level programs are worth considering. The transboundary corridor outcomes are also more Vulnerable to poaching and illegal logging because the international boundaries provide refuges from national-level policing, and entry points to poachers.

3.2. Support training programs to protect, manage and monitor species, sites and corridor outcomes
CEPF can support development of capacity within CBOs to assess and inventory biodiversity in their traditional and customary forests areas and community forests and to develop monitoring protocols to identify degradation from unsustainable extraction levels and external threats.

CEPF should also support development of an adequately trained cadre in government sectors as well as stakeholders within civil society who are directly involved in natural resources management in all site and corridor outcomes. Such training support will enhance capacity of staff who are capable of multi-tasked jobs such as anti-poaching, social forestry, park management and protection, field research and community motivation.

3.3. Develop and strengthen capacity among grassroots civil society organizations to manage, monitor and mitigate threats to biodiversity
CEPF can also build capacity within civil society groups to advocate for and participate in effective local and central-level policymaking to mitigate threats—a logical follow-up step to the monitoring and assessment capacity building within civil society groups. In the Nepal Terai and the northeastern Indian hill states, land is frequently lost to outside interests. As a result the traditional users of these lands become marginalized and begin to use smaller, less productive areas of land more intensively with little thought for the environmental costs and long-term consequences. Informed advocacy from the grassroots level can often help to prevent such land grabbing, and the local communities are in the best positions to become effective watchdogs.

The corridor and site outcomes in Nepal and northeastern India are candidates for such interventions and CEPF support. CEPF can support development of capacity within the CBOs to assess and inventory biodiversity in their traditional and customary forests areas and community forests; develop monitoring protocols to identify degradation from unsustainable extraction levels and external threats; and contribute to more effective laws, legislation and regulations.

3.4. Support transboundary initiatives for conservation of landscapes that extend across international borders
Three priority corridors for CEPF investment—Terai Arc Landscape, Bhutan Biological Conservation Complex, and Kangchenjunga-Singalila-Kangchenjunga Landscape—extend across international boundaries. The movements of species in these corridors transcend these political boundaries, exposing them to different levels of risk from poaching, retaliation due to conflict, and land conversion and land-use regimes, because threat intensities can differ across boundaries. Ecological processes such as hydrological regimes are also dependent on cross-border conservation initiatives; for instance, flows in the Manas and Karnali rivers that flow south into India would depend on land use, dams and other river manipulations in Bhutan and Nepal. Similarly, dams and other hydrological projects in India will affect fish migrations and the survival of species such as the Gangetic River dolphin in Nepal. Poachers are also said to cross international boundaries within transboundary reserve complexes. Thus, effective management of these landscapes will require cooperation and coordination between countries.

CEPF can support dialog between the countries at the central, district, village and departmental levels through civil society mediators and facilitators. CEPF can also support activities that help to coordinate and mitigate threats to biodiversity, such as controlling cross-border incursions for poaching and logging, identifying and eliminating international trade routes, alleviating detrimental land use and habitat conversion practices across borders to maintain corridor integrity. In addition, CEPF can support international conferences for civil society and government to discuss conservation issues that relate to transboundary conservation of key species outcomes; exchanges between park managers, universities and institutions; and joint surveys and research.

4. Develop a small grants program to safeguard globally threatened species in the eastern Himalayas
Large areas of the eastern Himalayas are still biologically unexplored, and the full extent of biodiversity remains unknown. Effective conservation of even the largest and most obvious species, the Asian elephant, is hindered by lack of reliable information about its ranging behavior, while population declines of species such as vultures and adjutants require further investigations to determine causes.

There are a few success stories in conservation from the region that are worth noting, however, such as the protection and translocations of the rhinoceros to increase the existing populations and establish additional founder populations. And the captive-breeding program of the pygmy hog has created a temporary refuge for this species that is Critically Endangered in the wild.

CEPF can help to conserve these priority species outcomes through select small grants to support recovery programs and other strategic activities implemented by civil society to add to the successes.

4.1. Support targeted high-impact projects to conserve Critically Endangered species
There are several NGOs and CBOs in the region that are engaged in captive breeding and species recovery programs of Endangered species. These programs contribute significantly to conservation of species outcomes, and can benefit from CEPF funding. All priority species outcomes should be eligible.

4.2. Support action-oriented research to enable or improve the conservation of priority species
Successful conservation of species depends on good, reliable information about their ecology, behavior and demographics, especially for specialist species that require specific conservation actions. CEPF can support required research and specific conservation actions such as controlling illegal trade of Endangered species conducted by civil society organizations, identifying priority populations for conservation and spatial area needs for wide-ranging species.

Many priority sites and corridors have had very little biological exploration, surveys and inventories. Thus, the current assessment is based on a limited taxonomic scope, and even within this limited group, the population status and reliable distributions of several species are unknown. CEPF can support civil society groups to conduct biological surveys and inventories to fill the information void and to develop databases that will be available for conservation across the region. All corridor and site outcomes should be priorities for biological surveys.

The priority species, especially the landscape species, should be priorities for information on ranging patterns to better define the corridor outcomes and to determine spatial requirements for viable populations. Research should also be conducted on the effects of habitat fragmentation on migratory behavior of birds that undertake seasonal altitudinal migrations, and on the distribution and status of indicators species, such as the amphibians. The aquatic biodiversity has been neglected, and inventory and research is needed on the fishes and Gangetic River dolphins.

4.3. Implement a monitoring program for priority species outcomes
CEPF’s conservation goals are based on achieving species outcomes in the region. Progress toward achieving these goals can be measured by monitoring the population status of these species. Therefore, CEPF should support monitoring programs for the priority species outcomes and their conservation status.

Previous: CEPF Niche for Investment / Next: Sustainability