Stakeholders seek to develop sustainable finance framework for protected areas |15 December 2014

Stakeholders involved in environment protection, nature conservation and other related fields have met to discuss and come up with a sustainable funding framework for protected areas in Seychelles.

Preparation for the framework which is being funded by the UNDP-GEF took place during a day-long workshop held recently at the STC (Seychelles Trading Company) conference room.

Alexandre Borde, a leading international consultant and economist, has been contracted by the UNDP/GEF to prepare the project document to be submitted by end of February next year while Herve Barois is the national project coordinator.
Roland Alcindor, the UNDP country representative, said the project is the last of a series to be funded under the GEF 5 programmed for Seychelles.

“It is an interesting project and it is the first of its kind here where all aspects of sustainable financing are being analysed. We’ve done projects with certain components of that in the past but this one is looking at developing sustainable financing systems for the whole country and coming up with different models as we have different types of protected areas in Seychelles, with over 50% of the country  under environmental protection,” Mr Alcindor pointed out.

“So I think it is a very timely project and we hope to have a very good project document which will sail through GEF approval process next year,” he pointed out.