Cepa highlights budget and policy for conservation areas

THE Conservation and Protection Authority (Cepa) budget of K55 million for 2018 to 2028 is aimed at setting up conservation areas and protected ecosystems around Papua New Guinea.
Speaking at the 3rd National Protection Areas Forum in Port Moresby yesterday, Cepa sustainable environment programmes director Kay Kalim said the “protected areas policy was the implementation plan and legislation made by the Government to protect conservation areas in the country and develop a framework to maintain the conservation of PNG’s land and sea ecosystems.
The policy on protected areas was created in 2018, its aims to guide the PNG Government in the development of a legislative and institutional framework for protected areas, that includeed the guidelines for designing and managing sea and land protected areas, through the partnership Cepa has with the United Nations development programme (UNDP) and the Government and provincial stakeholders that were critical partners as this was where identified protected areas were.
“The policy aimed to create a protected area network across land and sea that safeguarded our precious and outstanding natural and cultural heritage,” she said.
“There are five pillars guiding the policy on protected areas that focused on governance and management, sustainable livelihoods for communities, effective adaptive biodiversity management, managing the protected area network and sustainable financing for protected areas.”
The budget for the five pillars made up the K55 million budget for the management of protected areas around the country, that was estimated for 10 years (2018 to 2028), however, Kalim said that although Cepa had submitted a budget to the Government, the State also had to include the conservation management budget in the National Budget as well.