Oct 18, 2012
AMMAN -- BirdLife International has launched a fund to finance projects that preserve the environment in the Mediterranean Basin, one of the world's largest biodiversity hotspots, representatives of the group said.
The fund is a five-year conservation investment in the Mediterranean Basin that seeks to preserve biodiversity and the environment by engaging and building the capacity of civil society organisations, said Ibrahim Khader, regional director of BirdLife International's Middle East Division.
"The Mediterranean Basin is the second largest global biodiversity hotspot, covering more than two million square kilometres across 34 countries and territories. It stretches from Portugal to Jordan and from northern Italy to Cape Verde," Khader said.
The Mediterranean Basin is one of the biological wonders of the world and is the third richest biological hotspot in the world, with more than 13,000 endemic species found nowhere else on Earth, he noted.
"The primary threat in the hotspot is habitat loss due to increasing pressure on water resources, agricultural intensification, land abandonment, and infrastructure and residential development," Khader told reporters at a meeting on Wednesday.
BirdLife International will announce a call for proposals twice a year for small grants worth up to $20,000 and large grants of up to $1 million, according to the regional director.
"NGOs, community groups, universities, private enterprises and individuals may apply for funding from all countries eligible for the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) support," Khader added.
CEPF is a joint conservation initiative that seeks to engage civil society in biodiversity conservation, according to BirdLife International.
CEPF Programme Leader at BirdLife International's Middle East Division Mohammed Yousef said that the grants awarded to civil society organisations will work towards safeguarding globally threatened species and critical sites in the Mediterranean Basin.
"The investments will promote innovative partnerships... to enhance conservation and connectivity in five landscape corridors in the basin and conserve globally threatened species through systematic planning and action," Yousef said.
The concept of "biodiversity hotspots" was proposed by environmentalist Norman Myers in 1998 to describe regions with significant numbers of endemic plants and high levels of habitat loss.
To qualify as a biodiversity hotspot, a region must meet two strict criteria: It must contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants as endemics, and it has to have lost at least 70 per cent of its primary vegetation, according to Conservation International.
© Jordan Times 2012
