Strategy Overview
The MacArthur Foundation has a long record of support for conservation in Eastern Himalaya, with the first grant made in 1986. Since then, the Foundation has provided 64 additional grants exceeding $14 million in support of groups working in Nepal, Bhutan, Northeast India and China (primarily Yunnan Province), with the most recent package of 12 grants was approved in March 2005.
The central goal for CSD grantmaking in the Eastern Himalaya is to ensure that biodiversity is protected through large conservation landscapes, using both formal protected areas, and also by involving local people, learning from their traditional management systems, and incorporating their livelihood needs and cultural values.
Grantmaking Priorities
The eastern region of the Himalayan mountain range harbors globally outstanding biological diversity. Its flora constitutes one of the most diverse alpine botanic zones on earth, and its temperate forests rank among the richest. Lying at the juncture of two major zoological realms, the region has ecologically diverse assemblages of vertebrates. The diversity of habitat types found in the Eastern Himalaya ranges from seasonally dry deciduous woodlands in the lower foothills to rich subtropical and temperate broadleaf forests in the middle hills, and sub-alpine conifer forests and highland meadows, all within a few miles of separation. The extreme topographic relief of the world's highest mountains constrains the dispersal of plant and animal species and affects microclimatic conditions.
The intactness of natural habitat landscapes in the Eastern Himalaya – the presence of large habitat blocks, their configuration and management status, and the amount of habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation – are important considerations when determining priorities for biodiversity conservation investments and conservation planning. Habitat connectivity is especially important in the steep Himalayan range because many ecological processes and phenomena depend on or are related to altitudinal changes.
In order to address threats to biodiversity in this Focal Area, the Foundation will support work toward two strategic goals: 1) Conserving priority landscapes; and 2) Building and strengthening conservation capacity of local, national and regional organizations.
The Foundation’s priorities were developed in consultation with conservationists working in the Himalaya region drawing heavily from Ecoregion-Based Conservation in the Eastern Himalaya: Identifying Important Areas for Biodiversity Conservation, published in Kathmandu in April 2001 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), and World Wildlife Fund (WWF). These strategic priorities will guide guide two additional three-year rounds of grantmaking in 2008 and 2011
Conserving Priority Landscapes – Supporting an effectively managed system of protected areas that includes representative samples of the biological diversity of the Eastern Himalaya region by utilizing a variety of conservation methods such as natural corridors, community-based management approaches and conservation landscapes.
Grants under this strategic element should focus on supporting local and international institutions collaborating with national government efforts in three large, priority corridor and protected area complexes for on the ground support:
Kangchenjunga-Sikkim Landscape (Nepal and India)
Bhutan Biological Corridor Complex (Bhutan)
Arunachal Pradesh-Gaoligongshan Landscape (India and Yunnan Province, China)
Building Conservation Capacity – Grantmaking under this second strategic element will strengthen the local institutional capacity for conservation action, including national institutions in government and within civil society. One aspect of grantmaking focuses on developing skills for collecting sufficient ecological information and scientific knowledge to support sound conservation decision-making.
Under these two conservation strategies, the Foundation is also interested in work that addresses and adapts to the likely effects of climate change on biodiversity conservation in this region, particularly in CSD's three priority landscapes.
Letters of inquiry for the March 2008 grant portfolio will be due July 1, 2007.
World Resources Institute (Washington, D.C.)
$145,000 to develop guidelines for good environmental governance to assist the processes and institutions involved in decision making in Yunnan Province, China (over two years). (2005)
California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco, California)
$225,000 to undertake biodiversity surveys of the Gaoligong Mountain Range in collaboration with Chinese partner agencies in Yunnan Province (over three years). (2005)
