Washington, DC — A $13.5 million grant, approved today by the Council of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), is supporting Madagascar's ambitious plan to protect its globally significant biodiversity, which includes hundreds of species that are unique to the island.

"Protection of Madagascar's biodiversity and natural resources will contribute to improving the quality of life for the country's residents, many of whom depend directly on natural resources for their livelihoods," said Len Good, CEO and Chairman of the GEF. "This project will also benefit the global environment, since Madagascar contains numerous unique species, including many medicinal plants that are of critical importance to the pharmaceutical industry."

The project is funded by a $13.5 million GEF grant and $135.4 million in co-financing from other sources, including $18.5 million from the Government of Madagascar. The World Bank and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), two of GEF's implementing agencies, are managing the project in partnership with key government agencies and NGOs. The project supports the third and final five-year phase of Madagascar's innovative Environmental Action Plan, which was started in 1991 with the support of a broad coalition of international donors, agencies, and NGOs.

Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world, is one of the 17 recognized mega-diverse countries that represent 80 percent of the world's biological diversity. As a result of Madagascar's longstanding geographical isolation and highly varied micro-climates, the archaic life-forms making up Madagascar's terrestrial ecosystems have evolved into some of the most unique biodiversity in the world. Madagascar also has some of the world's most extensive and biologically rich coral reefs, but widespread over-fishing constitutes a growing threat.

Without substantial and sustained intervention, there is a real risk that numerous species that are unique to Madagascar will become extinct. Deforestation?caused by illegal logging and unsustainable agricultural practices, among other factors?is a major threat to the biodiversity. It also leads to a rapid loss of topsoil?which, in turn, diminishes the country's agricultural productivity and accelerates its downward spiral of extreme poverty. Nearly 80 percent of the country's poor residents live in rural areas and depend on the land almost exclusively for their livelihoods.

GEF funds will be used to preserve the quality of Madagascar's globally significant biodiversity and natural resources by supporting the following activities, among others: · Improvement of the long-term financial, institutional, social, and environmental sustainability of the national protected area system. · Demonstration and replication of best models for sustainable community-based forest and fisheries management to improve biodiversity conservation in the land surrounding protected areas. Funding will be provided to develop integrated natural resource management models, support multi-stakeholder participatory planning, develop core management capacities, and develop policy and institutional mechanisms to ensure "mainstreaming" of environmental concerns into other sectors.

Investments made under Madagascar's Environmental Action Plan from 1991 to the present are leading towards the establishment of a comprehensive environmental policy and regulatory framework, and have already led to the creation of environmental institutions. The Government of Madagascar's Ministry of Water and Forests, for example, has successfully carried out an action plan to improve governance. This plan included the transferal of 70 percent of permit fees to local stakeholders, thus providing an increased incentive for communities to support the enforcement of logging regulations.