PIF 4 - Sustainable Management of Forest Resources on Savaii Island

The following GEF-PAS proposal, namely Sustainable Management of Forest Resources on Savaii Island, attempts to encourage Samoa to sustainably manage its forest resources by addressing the following issues:

(i) ISSUE: The main issue is the ongoing non-sustainable management of customary-owned native upland forests on Samoa's largest island, Savaii Island, causing serious economic, social and cultural impacts. Communities are continuing to expand their plantations at the expense of native forest regeneration: short-term economic survival has taken precedence over forest conservation. Past native forest conservation efforts have, therefore, been constrained by poor capacity of communities and the Government of Samoa (GOS) to jointly plan, establish and help manage forests on a long-term sustainable footing. Samoa's recent experience in forest management has shown, therefore, that in order to achieve the long-term sustainability of these upland forests, it will require additional design and implementation of new economic and governance strategies to address the immediate sustainable livelihood issues of resource owners. These PAs in the highlands will, therefore, possibly need to be managed by the landowners themselves, but with key indirect capital and financial resources provided jointly by the GOS and the MSP Project. A key barrier, however, to the expansion of Samoa’s PAs, and to attaining this proposed long-term sustainability of upland forests, is that approximately 79% of this territory is still under customary tenure, including the vast majority of ecologically important areas that are currently outside Samoa's already designated PAs. The GOS has, therefore, already committed 7.2% (50,791 acres) of its total land area for PA management, but has recognised that additional support and incentives will need to be given to customary landowners to better protect globally significant ecosystems on customary lands. The strategic economic development, therefore, of this proposed private sector/public sector PA partnership model for the protection of upland forests is essential for the conservation of Samoa's upland forests. (ii) HOW THE PROJECT SEEKS TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE: The proposed MSP Project will, therefore, help to put in place the enabling governance conditions required at the national level for the legal establishment of sustainable PAs on customary lands as part of a more comprehensive PAs network. Simultaneously, testing and demonstrating new approaches to PA planning, establishment and management of these ecologically critical demonstration pilot sites is essential in order to address local capacity and governance barriers that have previously prevented earlier customary-owned PAs from becoming fully sustainable ecologically and financially. This forest conservation model for the uplands will be dynamically enhanced through the development of economically-viable plantation forests and agroforests in the lowlands, therefore protecting the forests in the uplands from further unnecessary over-exploitation. The key steps to building capacity for sustainable management of native upland forests are to, therefore, increase governance capacity and financial resources within key villages, increase understanding and training in forest resource management, increase economic returns from timber resources through value-adding processes, introduce related income-generating activities (e.g. agroforestry, NTP production, ecotourism development, etc.) and thus subsequently build a stronger partnership between the GOS and forest resource owners. (iii) GLOBAL BENEFITS: Savaii’s upland forest ecosystems have been identified as globally significant areas of high conservation value in Samoa’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP). Substantial global environmental benefits are, therefore, expected to be generated in the longer-term with regards to the protection of forest genetic resources and protection of Samoa's terrestrial biodiversity. Also, this development of an effective PA model in Samoa will have potential for wider replication nationally and possibly regionally, thus significantly contributing to biodiversity conservation globally.