Biodiversity

Tropical forests cover 7% of all land areas and harbour over 50% of our planet’s biological diversity. Every year, over 70 million hectares of forests become seriously degraded. The degradation of tropical forest ecosystems generates 20% of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.
 

To deal with this situation, the international community began negotiations in 2007 to set up a financing mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation and the degradation of forest ecosystems (REDD), to be incorporated into the agreement on climate which is to follow the Kyoto Protocol after it expires in 2012.
 

As the world’s third largest maritime power with an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covering 11 million km2 and the fourth largest area of coral reefs that include several marine biodiversity hotspots, France has a major role and extensive responsibilities towards protection of the world’s oceans.
 

A recent Nature Conservancy assessment published in Conservation Letters has found that only 1% of the world’s marine areas (as against 12% of land areas) are officially protected today, despite government commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity to place 10% of all marine areas under protection by 2012.
 

Only 4% of the world’s coastal areas are currently protected, with wide variations in coverage (70% around New Zealand but less than 2% around the Mediterranean). Protection of the world’s marine environments therefore still demands major efforts. In a context of global economic and environmental crisis and scarce financial resources for intervention, action is not only urgent but also needs to be relevant and closely targeted.
 

Since 1994, the FGEF has financed several programmes and projects for the protection of marine biodiversity and the establishment of Marine Protected Areas, contributing to the protection of more than 70 Marine Protected Areas (MPA) that cover more than 8 000 km2 across the globe.
 

The FGEF encourages the conservation of species and habitats, traditional resource uses by local populations and the sustainable extraction of resources. A priority objective of the FGEF is to help realise the economic value of biodiversity as a driver of social and economic development and to involve the local population in its management.

The projects co-financed by the FGEF apply a spatial planning approach that involves changes in area allocation and new rules of governance, management at landscape scale, zoning with rules for different uses and establishing fauna protection and migration corridors, either negotiated with or decided on by the populations concerned.
 

Cultivated root crops and tubers are vital to food security in the countries of the humid tropical zone.  Preserving the genetic diversity of root and tuber plants is a complex matter and has rarely been attempted to date. By proposing methods for to conserve these species, the FGEF is contributing to conservation solutions.