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UNEP urges govt to finance restoration of
ecosystems

Nairobi, Kenya, 09/02 - The
United nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has called on world
governments to financially support the restoration of ecosystems as
a way of improving rural households.

According to a new
report, entitled `The Wealth of the Poor` and produced by the
Washington-based WRI in collaboration with UNDP, UNEP and the World
Bank, targeted investments in ecosystems in developing countries
could change peoples lives.

In a press release issued in
Nairobi Thursday, the UN environment agency cited the case of a
re-afforestation project in Shinyanga region of Tanzania just south
of Lake Victoria, Africa`s fresh largest water mass.

Due to
widespread deforestation and conversion of woodlands into crop
lands, Shinyanga region was until recently nick-named the "desert"
of Tanzania.

The situation has now changed thanks to an
18-year project that led to the creation of village based woodlands
and enclosures, which reversed land degradation and improved rural
livelihoods.

To date, some 350,000 hectares of `Ngitili`, the
Sukuma vernacular word for enclosures, have been planted covering
well over 800 villages and 2.8 million people. A new study by the
Tanzanian government estimates the cash benefits of the restoration
at about $14 per person per month, some $5.50 higher than the
national average.

Shinyanga villagers now report big cuts in
the time taken to collect materials. For example the time taken to
collect fuel wood has been slashed down to between two to six hours
a day. People spend two hours less to collect water a day and forage
by between three and six hours during the harvest season. The time
saved by women in collecting natural resources is also allowing them
more time to concentrate on other income-generating activities while
fostering better child care and school attendance.

Klaus
Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), commended the study, saying it clearly
demonstrated "the importance of healthy forests, marine
environments, freshwaters and other key ecosystems for meeting
internationally agreed development targets".

"In the past the
environment has been viewed as something like a Hermes silk tie or a
Gucci handbag-a luxury only affordable when all other issues have
been resolved, but this (WRI) report, allied with a series of other
new and authoritative studies released over recent months such as
the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, overturns this myth and
underlines in graphic detail the importance of `natures` natural
capital alongside financial and human capital," added Toepfer.

"These numerous studies also make it clear that targeted
investments in the restoration of ecosystems are not only
cost-effective but have a high rate of return in areas such as rural
incomes, improving drinking water supplies and reducing the spread
of infectious diseases," he said.

"I would urge Presidents
and Prime Ministers to make this WRI report and the findings of the
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment indispensable parts of their
reading. I am sure that the conclusions will suggest to them, as
they do to me, fresh, imaginative, sensible and truly sustainable
approaches to the pressing development issues of the day," said
Toepfer.

Another case study focuses on a set aside scheme
developed with local people at Ucunivanua, a sea side village on the
Fijian island of Viti Levu, where the Kaikoso clam has, for
generations, been an important source of food and income as well as
a cultural, clan symbol or totem.

In recent years, however,
catches of the clams have declined sharply in number and size,
forcing women to spend many hours digging in the mud and seagrass
beds to fill just half a bag, while their ancestors did so in just a
few hours to fill a bag in previous decades.

To restore the
marine ecosystem, local residents in collaboration with the
University of the South Pacific, have established a 24-hectare
locally managed marine protected area or "tabu".

Significantly, yields and clam size have blossomed outside
the tabu into the adjacent harvest site, whereby whereas one clam
was found per 50 cubic meters in 1997, over 500 are found in the
same volume of mud and sea grass. Even the bumper-sized clams are
increasing from one to 91 per 50 cubic meters now.

The
success of the three-year Fijian pilot project has prompted the
local community to extend it indefinitely.

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