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.
A fundamental purpose of CEPF is to ensure that civil society is engaged in efforts to conserve biodiversity in the hotspots. Anadditional 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 Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests of Tanzania and Kenya hotspot (hereafter referred to as the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests hotspot) is one of the smallest of the 25 global biodiversity hotspots*. It qualifies by virtue of its high endemicity and a severe degree of threat. Although the hotspot ranks low compared to other hotspots in total numbers of endemic species, it ranks first among the 25 hotspots in the number of endemic plant and vertebrate species per unit area (Myers et al. 2000). It also shows a high degree of congruence for plants and vertebrates. It is also considered as the hotspot most likely to suffer the most plant and vertebrate extinction for a given loss of habitat and as one of 11 “hyperhot” priorities for conservation investment (Brooks et al. 2002).
(*
March 2005 update: At the time this document was prepared in 2003, the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests region was classified as a biodiversity hotspot itself. However, a hotspots reappraisal released in 2005 places this region within two new hotspots - the Eastern Afromontane Hotspot and the Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa Hotspot. This profile and CEPF investments focus strictly on the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests comprising the original hotspot as defined in this document.)
The Ecosystem Profile
The purpose of the ecosystem profile is to provide an overview of biodiversity values, conservation targets or “outcomes,” the causes of biodiversity loss and current conservation investments in a particular hotspot. Its purpose is to identify the niche where CEPF investments can provide the greatest incremental value.
The ecosystem profile recommends strategic opportunities, called “strategic funding directions.” Civil society organizations then propose projects and actions that fit into these strategic directions and contribute to the conservation of biodiversity in the hotspot. 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 guides those activities. Applicants for CEPF grants are required to prepare detailed proposals identifying and describing the interventions and performance indicators that will be used to evaluate the success of the project.
Previous: Contents / Next: Background