Quick Funding Offered for Imperiled Natural World Heritage Sites

PARIS, France, March 8, 2006 (ENS) - The quickest grant-giving facility in the world for environmental causes has been established to address sudden threats to globally important biodiversity sites. Three international organizations, working in concert, are offering to provide funding when emergencies arise at UNESCO Natural World Heritage Sites.

The World Heritage Centre, the United Nations Foundation, and Fauna & Flora International have launched a Rapid Response Facility that is set up to make up to US$30,000 available within three weeks of the date the request is received.

The World Heritage Centre is the focal point and coordinator within UNESCO for all matters related to World Heritage. As of 2005, a total of 812 sites have been included in the List of World Heritage - 628 cultural, 160 natural, and 24 mixed properties in 137 countries.

Volunteers wash an oiled bird caught in the 2001 Jessica oil spill in the Galapagos Islands World Heritage Site. (Photo courtesy Darwin Foundation)

Created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner’s US$1 billion gift to support United Nations causes and activities, the UN Foundation is a public charity that builds and implements public-private partnerships to address some of the world’s most urgent problems.

In a joint statement annoucing the new Rapid Response Facility, the organizations say when emergencies and urgent situations occur, critical time is often lost organizing a response, during which precious natural world heritage may be irreparably damaged.

Such a situation occurred in 2001 when the oil tanker Jessica ran aground in the Galapagos Islands, spilling 240,000 tons of oil into the waters of the UNESCO World Heritage site.

UNESCO Natural World Heritage sites represent the world’s important areas of biodiversity, and their identification and protection are key parts of the global community’s responsibility for conservation.

The Rapid Response Facility will be tested over the next two years, delivering five or six small grants of US$5,000 to US$30,000 each year.

Grants will be restricted to developing countries that are eligible for official development assistance according to the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The oil tanker Jessica aground in the Galapagos Islands World Heritage site. January 2001. (Photo courtesy USGC)

Also eligible are registered local, national or international nongovernmental organizations; the private sector, including local and multinational corporations; and multi-lateral and bilateral aid organizations. No grants are made to individuals.

Sites eligible to apply include all sites inscribed onto the List of World Heritage as well as nominated sites whose inscription to the List was deferred due to immediate threats to their ecological integrity. In what the groups call "exceptional circumstances," sites on the national World Heritage Tentative lists may also be eligible.

Additionally, Rapid Response Facility funding may be applied to countering threats to a Natural World Heritage site that originates outside site boundaries, as long as a direct causal link can be demonstrated between those threats and the integrity of the site.

The Rapid Response Facility is now open for applications. Applications are accepted at any time and decisions are made on a rolling basis.

Go to: http://www.fauna-flora.org/rrf or email: rrf@fauna-flora.org for more information.

See the List of World Heritage Sites, both natural and cultural, online at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/