Mitigation Hierarchy and Biodiversity Offsets Training

Transcription

1 Mitigation Hierarchy and Biodiversity Offsets Training Pemba, Cabo Delgado, 6 h and 7 th December 2016 BIOFUND and the COMBO Project

2 Index 1 Introduction Framework Objectives Implementation Results Conclusions and next steps Appendices

3 1 Introduction The Wildlife Conservation Society, Forest Trends and Biotope have commenced a four-year project ( ) which aims to reconcile economic development in Africa with conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. This project is funded by the Agence Francaise de Développement (AFD), the Fonds Français pour l'environnement Mondial (FFEM) and the Mava Foundation. It will build capacity to reduce the impacts of development projects on biodiversity. The project is working with governments, developers and industry to expand and improve the application of the mitigation hierarchy in four African nations: Guinea, Madagascar, Mozambique and Uganda. The mitigation hierarchy involves a sequence of four key actions avoid, minimise, restore and offset. It is a best practice approach to reducing the negative impacts of development projects on biodiversity and ecosystem services. COMBO is supporting this approach by: 1. C1 Giving support to policies: assisting the government in the identification, analysis and introduction of appropriate policy to encourage investment in development projects that result in no net loss or a net gain of biodiversity. 2. C2 Planning tools and metrics: creating the enabling conditions for development projects to achieve no net loss of biodiversity by: i) supporting national planning processes; ii) identifying relevant biodiversity metrics; and iii) developing and implementing baseline and monitoring survey methodology. 3. C3 Assisting implementation mechanisms: developing institutional, legal and financial mechanisms for offset implementation, particularly those linked with conservation trust funds to secure the permanence of conservation outcomes. 4. C4 Interaction with the private sector: supporting the uptake of best practice in the public and private sectors, monitoring these initiatives and developing lessons learnt. 5. C5 Training, capacity building information sharing: building national and regional capacity by sharing lessons learnt drawn from African and global experiences of no net loss activities with a wide range of involved stakeholders. Over four years, the COMBO Project will be working with the Government of Mozambique, developers, industry, academia, NGOs, international bilateral and multi-lateral institutions and communities, providing technical assistance, developing tools and producing information on the hierarchy of mitigation and biodiversity offsets adjusted to the reality of the country. The project follows the no net loss principles and guidance of the Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program (BBOP) and BBOP Standard, the International Finance Corporation Performance Standard 6, Equator Principles, IPIECA, ICMM and other best practice policy and methodologies. As these principles and standards have received widespread review by a range 2

4 of stakeholders, this approach will facilitate the improved application of the mitigation hierarchy globally. The project was officially launched in Mozambique on the 24 th October 2016 together with the Biodiversity Offsets Roadmap for Mozambique and on the day after there was an introductory training on Mitigation Hierarchy and Biodiversity Offsets dedicated to Government of Mozambique staff and BIOFUND. A total of 101 people from 61 institutions participated at the launch and 36 people from 30 institutions were trained on the second day. This report is related to Component 5 of the project, which is dedicated to training, capacity building and project communication. The training component can be summarised as per below: Objective: - Create national and regional capacity, sharing lessons learned from African and international experiences of the activities associated with any net loss with a wide range of actors involved. Activities to be implemented: - Design a training program and produce the training materials. - Organize and conduct training sessions. - Conduct an exchange visit to share experiences and knowledge with counterparts in Madagascar. - Publicize the project. Results: - Implement a training program adjusted to the Mozambican context. - Conduct at least eight training sessions for different "stakeholders" of Mozambican society. - Acquire relevant knowledge as part of the Madagascar study visit. - Inclusion of the training materials and reports on the website for online access. The Pemba-based event is part of the training program developed under this component. This program is dynamic so that it can be adjusted to the needs of the Mozambican professionals whose work implies dealing with the Mitigation Hierarchy and Biodiversity Offsets. The COMBO project seeks the opportunity to work with local Mozambican partners in order to maximize the capacity building of local institutions. Additional opportunities are subject to obtaining further funding and support, as was the case with the Pemba event, which was funded by WW F Mozambique Country Office and BIOFUND (through UNDP / GEF / PIMS ID 3938). BIOFUND is one of the local main partners and potentially all the training sessions will involve this institution. Additionally, case by case, COMBO will partner with other 3

5 stakeholders, as it did in this case. The next section details the framework of this training that was held in Pemba, Cabo Delgado. 2 Framework BIOFUND is one of the COMBO project main partners in Mozambique and focuses on supporting the conservation of terrestrial and marine biodiversity and the sustainable use of natural resources, including the consolidation of the national Protected Areas system. BIOFUND receives and manages contributions from the state, national and foreign private entities, bilateral and multilateral donors and other partners. This is Mozambique s first such fund and it has been chosen as the preferred fund manager for several innovative national initiatives for conservation finance in areas such as carbon crediting and biodiversity offsetting. The income of the trust fund is allocated to Mozambique s conservation area network, based on criteria and conditions set by the various stakeholders who include the National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC), donors, local governments, communities, and others. In addition to supporting ANAC s and the national system of protected areas, BIOFUND has broader objectives in the conservation of biodiversity, as set out in its articles of incorporation. One of the most important of these additional objectives is the integration of conservation and conservation principles into national development planning, national institutions, and the hearts of individual citizens. Considering both the objectives of COMBO and BIOFUND, there is a shared interest to build a partnership with key stakeholders working on offsets and the opportunity for holding a second training course arose. Simultaneously to COMBO and BIOFUND s initiatives on offsets, an NGO with a Mozambican Country Office, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF MCO) is currently implementing an initiative to promote sustainability of the protected areas system focused on the promotion of the biodiversity offsets concept and building national capacity on regard of offsets and exchange experiences with key actors in the region. Therefore, an opportunity was identified to join efforts and expertise to promote this training on mitigation hierarchy and biodiversity offsets in Pemba, Mozambique. The objective of the COMBO project and BIOFUND is to collaborate with WWF to train relevant stakeholders and to mainstream the mitigation hierarchy and the biodiversity offsets in Mozambique. Under that strategy, doing regional training is one of the partners milestones. 4

6 3 Objectives The objectives of the training were to: Raise awareness amongst trainees of the concepts of mitigation hierarchy and biodiversity offsets Improve understanding of how the country s EIA law should be applied and when the mitigation hierarchy and offsets are necessary Improve understanding of how the mitigation hierarchy should be applied Raise awareness of the basic requirements for designing and implementing an offset, including through the use of a fictitious case study 4 Implementation The training session, designated Mitigation Hierarchy and Biodiversity Offsets, was held in Pemba, Cabo Delgado (Mozambique) during the 6 th and 7 th December This location was strategically chosen to bring people not only from the Cabo Delgado Province but also from Niassa and Nampula. A total of 63 invitation letters was sent to a selection of Provincial Directorates, the local Conservation Areas and the District Prosecutors 1. In the case of Cabo Delgado, representatives from some Districts (SDAE), consultancy and development companies, local Universities, local NGOs and the Municipality of Pemba were also invited. The planning, logistics and administration of the events were conducted by the local COMBO team in coordination with the project s international team. The procurement and most of the administrative procedures were done by a local service provider based in Pemba (more details on this can be found in Appendix I). Particularly, the logistics to bring all the trainees was complex as these were coming from several locations and several means of transportation were needed. Most of the prosecutors were still in Maputo as they were still being assigned to their new locations, so they had to travel by air plane. The trainees from the Provincial Directorates of Niassa and Nampula were transported by a rented transfer service whereas the ones from Cabo Delgado used their own car or public transportation services. 1 The team of prosecutors of the Districts, which overlap the Conservation Areas has also been called Conservationist Prosecutors as these have been receiving specific training on conservation issues. 5

7 The COMBO training was co-funded by WWF MCO and BIOFUND (grant agreement number 05 - FY ) with funds provided by UNDP / GEF / PIMS ID 3938, project PROFIN, Component 3 - Business Planning and Income Generation, Sub-component 3.4. The potential to finance conservation areas from the implementation of biodiversity offset mechanisms and compensation is evaluated, through UNDP, in the project entitled "Sustainable Financing for the System of Protected Areas of Mozambique". 5 Results The training was held in the meeting room of the Provincial Directorate for Agriculture and Food Security (DPASA) and a total of 50 trainees from 45 institutions attended the event during the 2 days. Day 1 (6/12) had 45 attendees as well as Day 2. The course was given by 3 trainers (Amrei von Hase, Forest Trends & COMBO, Sean Nazerali, BIOFUND, and Hugo Costa, WCS Mozambique & COMBO). Denise Nicolau from WWF-MCO was simultaneously a trainee and a trainer as she gave support to the remaining trainers during the session. Local logistics and administration were provided by 2 people from a local service provider. The training session agenda is presented in Appendix II and the technical content is available at the COMBO project webpage at Table 1 and Figure 1 show which institutions were present at the event and the numbers of participants. Most of them were affiliated to institutions from the Government of Mozambique, 18 of them from Cabo Delgado (50%), 12 from Niassa (33%) and 6 from Nampula (17%). Considering all the sectors, Cabo Delgado had 32 trainees (64% of the total). Table 1 List of institutions and number of participants from the sectors that were present at the training 6

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9 Figure 1 - Proportion of institutions (top) and participants (bottom) by sector present at the training session The event started with a dinner on the evening previous to the first training day to welcome the participants who came from outside Pemba (Figure 2). Figure 2 COMBO welcome dinner and closing session by the Provincial Director for Transport and Communication (representative of the Provincial Director of Land, Environment and Rural Development) 8

10 The closing of the event 2 was officially conducted by the Provincial Director for Transport and Communication in representation of the Provincial Director of Land, Environment and Rural Development, who was absent from the Province. The first day of the training session (Figure 3) focused essentially on key concepts such as: The mitigation hierarchy: Avoidance, Minimisation, Restoration and Offsets Direct, indirect and cumulative impacts EIA and NNL; the current legal framework in Mozambique The BBOP Principles and international standards (BBOP, IFC PS6, ESF WB) Not net loss (NNL) & net gain (NG) Compensation and offsets around the world The importance of stakeholders Role of government Roadmaps and lessons learnt and good practice globally Evolution of mitigation systems over time Biodiversity Offsets Roadmap for Mozambique The COMBO team and resources to go further 2 The training coincided with a transboundary event in Pemba. Therefore, it couldn t be officially opened by a high-profile member of the local government. 9

11 Figure 3 Trainers and attendees during the training Some exercises were done in the first day, but it was in the second day that the trainees spent more time working in groups (Figure 4). The exercises, especially the one regarding the application of the mitigation hierarchy and offsets to a local fictitious case-study generated several questions and discussion periods, as each of the groups had the opportunity to present its results (Figure 4). 10

12 Figure 4 Group exercises, questions and discussion The topics covered in the second day were the ones below and several examples and case studies were given by the trainers: Key biodiversity values (species and landscapes) Impacts which cannot be offset Metrics and exchange rules for biodiversity Introduction to the exercise What counts as a gain? The principle of additionality and the importance of reference scenarios Implementation: issues to consider The charts presented in Figure 5 show the average and mode of the evaluation done by the trainees to the course held in Pemba. Several parameters were evaluated and it can be seen that the ones that scored higher are the content and provided documents relevance. The ones that scored lower were the training duration and the time provided for discussion. 11

13 Figure 5 Results of the evaluation done by the trainees to the course held in Pemba (average and mode of each of the evaluated parameters) 6 Conclusions and next steps A total of 50 people trained in the Mitigation Hierarchy and Biodiversity Offsets. The most relevant numbers are: 50 trainees from 45 institutions (72% from Government Institutions, 12% from NGOs/CBOs, 8% from Developers, 4% from Environmental consultancy companies and 4% from Academia) 32 trainees from Cabo Delgado (18 from Government Institutions) 12 trainees from Niassa 6 trainees from Nampula For most of the trainees this was the first contact they had with the topics of Mitigation Hierarchy and Biodiversity Offsets. That was noticed in the course evaluation they did at the end of the event, where the parameters training duration and time provided for discussion were given the lowest scores. The trainees felt the two days were not enough for all they need and wanted to know about the subjects. The global evaluation of 4 out of 5 shows that these are definitely relevant topics to them, something that had already been perceived from the discussions and questions posed by the trainees during the training. It is therefore important to continue the training program at the provincial level (and District when possible), reaching the different stakeholders potentially involved in these subjects in their day to day activities. Bringing more case studies and real examples to the training content is also something to achieve in the next sessions. It is clear that people have the need to know and understand examples that have been implemented in similar contexts. 12

14 In conclusion, although organizing this training for people from three Northern Provinces of Mozambique was a challenging task it went very well and the objectives that had been defined were accomplished, with a high degree of satisfaction from the trainees (Figure 6). Figure 6 Example of one of the lunch breaks and group photo with trainees, trainers and organization team 13

15 7 Appendices Venue: o Appendix I Details of the selected options for the COMBO training The training was held at the training room of the Provincial Directorate for Agriculture and Food security, located in Pemba. This is one of the few rooms in Pemba which is prepared for over 50 people, with air conditioned, sound, boards, data projector, toilets and an associated canteen. The cost-benefit relation was excellent. Transportation: o Participants and trainers coming from Maputo (and abroad in the case of Amrei von Hase who was coming from Cape Town) were transported by airplane. Hugo Costa also travelled to Maputo and returned to Pemba to prepare the training and bring to Pemba all the course materials. o A procurement was undertaken to select the land based transportation of the participants coming from Nampula and Liching. A rent-a-car service with drivers was selected and 4 cars were needed to transpot the participants coming from these locations o The remaining participants coming from Cabo Delgado travelled using their own cars or local public transportation o Participants coming from outside Pemba arrived on the 5 December and departed on the 8 December. Accommodation: o A procurement was done in Pemba to select the place for the accommodation of all people coming from outside Pemba. Hotel Wimbi Sun was selected to accommodate all the participants. Breakfast was included. Subsistence: o Restaurant Pemba Dolphin was selected to provide dinners to the participants coming from outside Pemba as it was very close to the hotel and had very good prices per meal. Extra meals on the arrival day were also given to participants in Pemba Dolphin as they arrived at lunchtime. o The first dinner was held at Hotel Raphaels as logistically it was the best option because people were arriving at different times. o The lunches, coffee breaks and waters were provided by a local catering provider established in the DPASA of Cabo Delgado. This proved ot be the best option as there was no need to transport people from the training area to other places. Printings, Stationary, and other materials: o Depending on the necessity and availability these items were purchased in Maputo or Pemba. 14

16 Appendix II Training agenda 08:00 Registration DAY 1 : TRAINING COURSE ON THE MITIGATION HIERARCHY AND BIODIVERSITY OFFSETS 08:30 Day Opens: Introduction: training objectives (includes coffee break) Focus on key concepts, including: The mitigation hierarchy: Avoidance, Minimisation, Restoration and Offsets Direct, indirect and cumulative impacts EIA and NNL; the current legal framework in Mozambique The BBOP Principles and international standards (BBOP, IFC PS6, ESF WB) Not net loss (NNL) & net gain (NG) Compensation and offsets around the world The importance of stakeholders COMBO team 12:00 Lunch 13:30 The role of Government and the Roadmaps (includes coffee break) Role of government Roadmaps and lessons learnt and good practice globally Evolution of mitigation systems over time Biodiversity Offsets Roadmap for Mozambique The COMBO team and resources to go further 15:00 Exercise on the mitigation hierarchy Q&A and discussion COMBO team COMBO team 16:30 Close of the training day 15

17 DAY 2 : TRAINING COURSE ON THE MITIGATION HIERARCHY AND BIODIVERSITY OFFSETS 08:30 Focus on key concepts, particularly technical issues (includes coffee break) Focus on key concepts, including: Key biodiversity values (species and landscapes) Impacts which cannot be offset Metrics and exchange rules for biodiversity Introduction to the exercise What counts as a gain? The principle of additionality and the importance of reference scenarios Implementation: issues to consider COMBO team 12:00 Lunch 13:30 Practical exercises (includes coffee break) Examples and case studies COMBO team 14:30 Exercise on the mitigation hierarchy and Offsets Q&A and discussion COMBO team Close of the training day 16