Biodiversity

Nature conservation areas are particularly important in the battle against deforestation and the loss of biodiversity. KfW Development Bank currently supports more than 500 nature conservation areas worldwide – 25 of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites. A large part of this - almost 70 % - are tropical forests. In 2016 alone 64 conversation areas and biological corridors in a size of 12,000 km² were added.

Yet even with purely protection projects, the aim is always to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner. Because nature conservation can only work in the long run if people and nature benefit in equal measure. This is why forest management and reforestation are the focal points of many projects.

KfW is also practicing an approach called REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). Here performance-related payments have proved to be an appropriate tool in protecting tropical forests. The REDD principle is that climate change and development funding is only provided if partner countries can prove they have reduced greenhouse gas emissions through forest protection measures. This is done in Brazil for example, with support of KfW.

Species of animal and plant are constantly disappearing from the earth: according to the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) more than 23,000 species are in acute danger worldwide. KfW Development Bank helps to stem this tide and maintain the biodiversity. In Africa, Asia, Latin America and South-Eastern Europe, KfW promotes the protection of nature and species in more than 500 protected areas with roughly EUR 865 million.

KfW also cooperates with the IUCN here – protecting tigers in Asia for example – to whom it pledged EUR 20 million at the end of 2013 on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) with a view to boosting the population of this majestic wildcat again. In Indonesia, KfW works together with the government and the people on elaborating land use strategies that protect flora and fauna. All told, this involves the protection of thousands of hectares of rainforest, some of which is on the islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi.

In collaboration with the nature conservation authorities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, KfW is helping to protect the last known refuges of lowland gorillas in Africa. They live in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in Eastern Congo. On behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development KfW is funding equipment for the rangers, supporting the preparation of a management plan and promoting the development of eco-tourism so that the local population can also benefit from nature conservation. Similarly to Eastern Congo, many KfW projects are aimed at linking nature conservation with economic benefits.

Fish represent a crucial part of the diet of almost three billion people. Additionally, more than 500 million people around the world are directly or indirectly dependent on fishing. That said, fish stocks have fallen dramatically in recent decades, though the heavy overfishing of the world's seas is only one of the problems. Fish populations are also at great risk because of polluted water and disruptions to key coastal ecosystems.

Climate change will continue to warm the seas up and cause sea levels to rise, resulting in receding coral reefs around the globe. This makes thousands of kilometres of coastline more vulnerable to storm tides, it destroys the refuges for many species of fish and can therefore push millions of people even further into poverty. Consequently, KfW is supporting different countries in protecting their coasts and seas.

For example, this includes the Caribbean countries of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and Jamaica, whom KfW is helping to stabilise key ecosystems such as coral reefs, mangrove forests and seagrass beds to mitigate the strength of tropical storms and therefore offer better protection for coastlines. This safeguards the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people living on the coast. In Mauritania, a fishery monitoring and surveillance project has for years used the most advanced radar surveillance techniques to help protect the fish stocks of this coastal nation against overfishing by foreign fishing fleets. By protecting the Banque d’Arguin National Park, this project also preserves the most important spawning grounds in Western Africa, and therefore the livelihoods of thousands of people.

Project Blue Action Fund