The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) is designed to safeguard the world's threatened biodiversity hotspots in developing countries. It is a joint initiative of Conservation International (CI), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Government of Japan, the MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank. CEPF supports projects in hotspots, the biologically richest and most endangered places on Earth. The Caucasus hotspot, with its unique assemblages of plant and animal communities and rare and endemic species, is globally important for conserving representative areas of the Earth's biodiversity, making it worthy of international attention and CEPF funding.
A fundamental purpose of CEPF is to ensure that civil society is engaged in efforts to conserve biodiversity in the hotspots. An additional purpose is to ensure that those efforts complement existing strategies and frameworks established by local, regional and national governments.
CEPF aims to promote working alliances among community groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), government, academic institutions and the private sector, combining unique capacities and eliminating duplication of efforts for a comprehensive approach to conservation. CEPF is unique among funding mechanisms in that it focuses on biological areas rather than political boundaries and examines conservation threats on a corridor-wide basis to identify and support a regional, rather than a national, approach to achieving conservation outcomes. Corridors are determined through a process of identifying important species, site and corridor-level conservation outcomes for the hotspot. CEPF targets transboundary cooperation when areas rich in biological value straddle national borders, or in areas where a regional approach will be more effective than a national approach.
The Caucasus hotspot, historically interpreted as the isthmus between the Black and Caspian seas, covers a total area of 580,000 km², including the nations of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the North Caucasus portion of the Russian Federation, northeastern Turkey and part of northwestern Iran (Figure 1 - Download the full strategy to view all graphics, tables and appendices).
One of the most biologically rich regions on Earth, the Caucasus is among the planet's 25 most diverse and endangered hotspots. The Caucasus is one of WWF's Global 200 Ecoregions, identified as globally outstanding for biodiversity. The Caucasus has also been named a large herbivore hotspot by WWF's Large Herbivore Initiative. Eleven species of large herbivores, as well as five large carnivores, are found over a relatively small area. The 2002 IUCN Red List identifies 50 species of globally threatened animals and one plant in the Caucasus. Among the IUCN species, 18 have restricted ranges or are endemics. The Caucasus Mountains harbor a wealth of highly sought-after medicinal and decorative plants, as well as unique relic and endemic plant communities.
Spanning the borders of six countries, the Caucasus hotspot is a globally significant center of cultural diversity, where a multitude of ethnic groups, languages and religions intermingle over a relatively small area. Close cooperation across borders will be required for conservation of unique and threatened ecosystems, while helping to foster peace and understanding in an ethnically diverse region.
The purpose of the ecosystem profile is to provide a rapid assessment of underlying causes of biodiversity loss, define measurable outcomes for conservation of species, sites and corridors, understand the existing institutional framework and identify funding gaps and opportunities for investment. The ecosystem profile recommends strategic funding directions that will contribute to the conservation of biodiversity in this globally significant region.
Civil society organizations will propose projects and actions that fit into these strategic directions and contribute to the conservation of biodiversity in the targeted region. Applicants propose specific projects consistent with these funding directions and investment criteria. The ecosystem profile does not define the specific activities that prospective implementers may propose, but outlines the conservation strategy that will guide those activities. Applicants for CEPF grants will be required to prepare detailed proposals identifying and describing the interventions and performance indicators that will be used to measure the success of the project.
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