Brazil, Peru and China
December 17, 2010
CHINA - On December 2, Ford Motor Company announced the winners of its 2010 Conservation and Environmental Grants in China (CEGC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. During the ceremony, a grantee of the GEF Small Grants Programme, the organization Ningxia Center for Environment and Poverty Alleviation for the SGP supported project ‘Environmental Sustainable Development Project in Yingxi Village, Yanchi County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region’ won one of the 28 awards.
The 28 winners were selected from more than 230 applicants through a rigorous process by an independent judging panel. The SGP grantee will use the prize to duplicate and scale up the project.
The winning project aims at promoting rural environment-friendly facilities - including energy-saving stoves, energy-saving heatable brick beds, solar heating houses, solar stoves and "trinity" biogas facilities - to help farmers establish various household ecological models. In adittion, the project aims to promote alternative livelihood activities such as building sheep stall and microbial storage feed tank; artificially planting grass and planting economic forest with the purpose to reduce human destroy behavior on the grassland; plant windbreak to reduce wind and sand damage to crops and to increase the rate of forest coverage and farmers' income; support women and family industry development through providing local women with micro-credit finance; and establish a new Energy Facility Maintenance Group in the project area.
PERU - The Association for the Protection of Dry Forests in The Choloque (Asociación de Protección de los Bosques Secos de El Choloque – ASPROBOS)- ASPROBOS, received an award from the Food and Agriculture Organization-FAO for good forest management practices and their contribution to the sustainability of forests. The Association has been supported by the GEF Small Grants Programme since 2003 for the initial phase where the community performed a forest resource inventory and assessment of the potential use of the forest in a sustainable way. The organization also received training on Sustainable Forest Management and was able to prepare a Community Forest Management Plan identifying economic initiatives through the sustainable use of the forest. Currently, ASPROBOS is replicating the project in the upper basin of the Chiniama River.
BRAZIL - The NGO “10envolvimento” ( 10-development), from the Cerrado region of Bahia State in Central Brazil, received the “Odair Firmino Solidarity Prize”. The prize was awarded by the Brazilian Cáritas in November 2010. The project was selected among 27 projects from all over the country. The NGO is supported by SGP Brazil to promote agro-ecological production, handicrafts made from natural materials and biodiversity products, and work with medicinal plants. The prize of R$ 20,000 (about US$ 11,700) will be invested in building a house to improve the handicraft production and to organize meetings and cultural events.
Contact: Ana Maria Currea, Knowledge Management Facilitator, GEF Small Grants Programme, ana.maria.currea@undp.org