Global Conservation Program
During the ten-year life of GCP (1999–2009), the program addressed emerging conservation challenges such as climate change and continuing threats such as unsustainable fishing and illegal logging. From the community to the broader landscape and seascape level, GCP focused on the most significant threats to biodiversity while strengthening local capacity, generating new conservation knowledge, and sharing best practices with stakeholders. GCP contributed to conservation efforts in nearly 30 countries, improving the management of more than 25 million hectares across key land- and seascapes. For example, GCP promoted large-scale conservation in coastal East Africa by building new approaches and alliances across national boundaries. In lowland Bolivia, GCP helped indigenous groups gain title to nearly 325,000 hectares of forest land while improving ecosystem management and livelihood options for local people. In Nepal, GCP worked with Community Forest User Groups to implement forest management plans that increase economic benefits for small-scale producers through the sustainable collection of non-timber forest products.
- GCP Brochure
- Video: Changing the Landscape Ten Years of Impact and Learning in USAID's Global Conservation Program
Closeout Reports, Achievements, and Lessons Learned
In addition to implementing site-based activities, the six GCP partners worked together to conduct applied research and dialogue on topics of broad conservation interest. This collaborative, inter-institutional learning initiative generated new conservation approaches, and identified and shared effective conservation practices.
Global Conservation Program Symposium
In September 2009, EGAT’s Biodiversity Team commemorated and celebrated ten years of investment in international biodiversity conservation through the Global Conservation Program (GCP) at a symposium hosted by the World Wildlife Fund. The World Wildlife Fund brought 20 field practitioners to Washington DC from GCP sites to hold a technical exchange and sharing of experience and lessons learned along with DC-based conservation professionals. The first day of the symposium focused on key GCP themes (threats-based conservation, land/seascape scale, adaptive management) and the second day focused on the emerging challenge of global climate change. On September 17, 2009 GCP partners and USAID hosted an event at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars which featured the work of GCP partners and celebrated the results of the program through field staff panels, and a video on the Global Conservation Program. The event also featured remarks from Cynthia Gill, USAID’s acting Biodiversity Team Leader, John Robinson the Executive Vice President of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Michael Yates USAID EGAT’s Senior DAA. The event was followed by a GCP-partner organization sponsored reception.
GCP Evaluation Report
The evaluation of USAID’s Global Conservation Program (GCP) described in this report was conducted between June 2007 and March 2008, through a Task Order under the Prosperity, Livelihoods, and Conserving Ecosystems (PLACE) Indefinite Quantity Contract (IQC). The GCP is a Leader with Associates (LWA) assistance mechanism that began in 1999, and funded six US-based non governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in biodiversity conservation to conduct site-level work in more than 25 specific landscapes and seascapes worldwide. The GCP partner NGOs are the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), Conservation International (CI), Enterprise Works-VITA (EWV), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The GCP’s central mandate focuses on achieving landscape-level conservation results in a representative selection of the world’s most biodiverse areas. The program also focuses on the sharing of lessons learned and conservation approaches between sites and among partners.
