Bhutan

Support to civil society in strengthening environmental mainstreaming into policies and plans

The project will catalyze and support grassroots civil society engagement in the conservation of Bhutan's biodiversity. The project will support a network of Nature Clubs (NC) in all the dzongkhags. The Nature Clubs basically comprise of group of students (members) with a shared commitment to protecting their local environment and are coordinated by teachers. The members of each nature club will be encouraged and supported to take responsibility for monitoring and promoting the conservation of their local areas and important habitat linkages in their dzongkhag. In this way, they will take local action to deliver global conservation outcomes.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Nature (RSPN) will support the activities of the nature clubs by providing training and coordination. Furthermore, RSPN will assist the Nature Clubs to identify and undertake conservation actions for key biodiversity areas and important habitat linkages, with action grants and funds leveraged from small grant schemes. In this way, the project will empower them to address local conservation issues, thus contributing to their livelihood security and the conservation of global biodiversity.

The overall goal is to strengthen RSPN's institutional capacity as a means to increasing public participation in environmental conservation by providing the opportunity for a well informed decision making and conservation activities within the Kingdom.

The immediate project objective therefore is to foster public awareness, knowledge and participation in environment conservation by building grassroots civil society support for biodiversity conservation in Bhutan.

UNDAF Outcome	5: By 2012, national capacity for environmental sustainability and disaster management strengthened.
CT Outcome	5.1.3:National capacity and tools to address cross-cutting/current issues related to environment
CT Output	1. National Capacity to mainstream environmental concerns into policies, plans & programs enhanced
Project Location	Central Region
Project Duration	January 2011 - December 2011
Budget Outlay	US$ 35,700
Link to Workplan	Click on the icon to download