Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

the detailed Biodiversidade Brasileira book published by
Brazil’s Environment Ministry (2002).
High Conservation Value Forests. Note 3.1, Mainstreaming
Conservation Considerations into Productive Landscapes,
discusses the (optional) planning methodology for designating
High Conservation Value Forests (HCVFs). According
to the HCVF Toolkit (available online at www.hcvf.org),
HCVFs are those forests considered to be “of outstanding
significance or critical importance,” according to six High
Conservation Value (HCV) criteria. Three of these six criteria
(HCV 1, 3, and 6) correspond very closely to the abovementioned
OP 4.36 criteria for critical forests. Thus, forests
designated as HCVFs under the HCVF methodology are
likely to also qualify as critical forests under the Forests Policy.
Moreover, if their selection as HCVFs was made according
to HCV criteria 1, 3, or 6, then they would almost certainly
qualify as critical forests under OP 4.36. As noted in
Note 3.1, while many HCVFs are likely to be placed under
strict protection, some HCVFs may be subject to limited
timber harvesting or other direct resource uses—so long as
the particular HCVs that are characteristic of those forests
would be maintained or enhanced, and not degraded or
lost. This is consistent with OPs 4.36 and 4.04, which do not
prohibit natural resource utilization within critical forests
or other critical natural habitats—only their conversion or
degradation (as defined above).
PROTECTING FORESTS THROUGH
CONSERVATION OFFSETS
The Forests and Natural Habitats policies require, under
some circumstances, the establishment or strengthening of
ecologically similar protected areas to compensate for, or
“offset,” the project-related conversion or degradation of
noncritical forests and other natural habitats. Conservation
offsets can be a valuable tool to leverage the funds from
infrastructure or other large-scale development projects
(that convert noncritical forests or other natural habitats) to
achieve “win-win” outcomes that represent net gains from a
conservation standpoint. Compensatory protected areas
provide an opportunity to turn a negative project feature
(natural habitat loss) into something environmentally positive
(new or strengthened protected areas). In response to
this requirement of the Forests and Natural Habitats policies,
some important forested areas are being effectively
conserved—whereas, without the project, they would have
remained unprotected and vulnerable to loss or damage
from other, often imminent, threats. Through the prudent
application of conservation offsets, many potentially controversial
development projects can yield significant net
environmental benefits and even turn some, though not all,
NGO project opponents into supporters.
One recent example of a large-scale conservation offset
supported by the World Bank is the extensive and biologically
valuable Nakai-Nam Theun National Protected Area in
the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, which is receiving
much needed on-the-ground support for its protection and
management as an offset for the inundation of a much
smaller, and generally less ecologically valuable, forested area
by the Nam Theun II hydroelectric dam. The protected area
was set up after the World Bank worked with the government
to develop a law that established a national protected areas
system and included the Nakai-Nam Theun National Protected
Area by reference through government decree.
When protected areas are established or strengthened to
compensate for the loss or degradation of noncritical forests
or other natural habitats, the funding for these compensatory
areas should come from the same project causing the
conversion or degradation. The Global Environment Facility
(GEF) does not fund activities intended to mitigate or
compensate for the environmental damage from IBRD- or
IDA-supported projects. However, the GEF will support
biodiversity-related or other qualified environmental
enhancement activities (including protected areas), if these
clearly go above and beyond the project mitigation required
by national laws and World Bank safeguards policies.
Under the Forests and Natural Habitats policies, compensatory
protected areas should be ecologically similar to, and
ideally no smaller than, the forest or other natural habitat area
that is converted or degraded under the overall project. However,
it is acceptable (and desirable) to conserve as an offset an
area that is ecologically somewhat different, if it is of greater
conservation value. For example, under Brazil’s Ceara Integrated
Water Resources Management Project, the flooding of
some relatively common dry forest with water supply reservoirs
was compensated for with support for improved conservation
of several moist forest areas (of higher conservation
priority) in the Sierra de Baturite and Chapada da Araripe.
See box 9.19 for an indicative list of the main steps
involved in creating new protected areas (regardless of
whether they serve as conservation offsets). Among the basic
issues to consider in the establishment or strengthening of
protected areas as conservation offsets are the following:
■
Fundamentals of protected area components. If they are to
be more than empty promises, components involving
compensatory protected areas (or virtually any other
314 CHAPTER 9:APPLYING FORESTS POLICY OP 4.36