By Maimuna Sey-Jawo
National Environment Agency NEA recently held its premier seminar on a five years project amounting to $5.6 million project. The seminar was held at the Kairaba Beach Hotel.
The project aimed to create an enabling environment for The Gambia in building national capacity to lead the reform of land use and marine spatial planning policies and to implement land/seascape level management that conserves ecosystem services in productive and protected land/seascape.
The programme brought together various district Authority, Government official staff of NEA, Park and Wildlife, Ministry of Environment and Department of Forestry among others.
The project will contribute to the removal of barriers to sustainable land management, biodiversity management, and integrated natural resources management in The Gambia.
Representing the Ministry of Environment at the opening ceremony, Mr. Babucarr Zaidou Jallow, Director Central Project Coordinating Unit Ministry of Environment said: “this project is meant for landscape/Seascape planning and Restoration to improve Ecosystem service and livelihood, expand and effectively manage protected areas.”
The “project being implemented by the NEA is in partnership with the United Nations, Environment Program UNEP.This meeting could not be held before the start of implementation of project activities due to covid-19. We are grateful to UNEP for the understanding of allowing the implementation to proceed without the workshop,” he added.
According to him, the funds for this five-year project is US$5.6Million from the country allocation in GEF funding cycle6, we are currently in GEF funding cycle 7.
“The project that is largely limited to the Kuntaur Area council in the Central River Region, as a pilot, aims at enhancing capacity for the planning and implementation for policies and programs that benefit sustainable land and Seascape management.
“To achieve this goal, this project will undertake activities and capacity that will build national capacity to lead the reform of land use and marine spatial planning policies. It will also build the capacity of relevant stakeholders to implement land and seascape level management that conserve level management that conserve ecosystem integrity, conservation and protected land and seascape,” he said.
He said the project is expected to achieve among the following, outcome improving planning and enforcement system adopted by at least three districts in the Kuntaur Local Government Area (LGA) to identify and address causes of land degradation LD and biodiversity loss.