BY ELLISON.T.VAHI
THE Isabel Province government has developed a conservation plan that involves the steps to understand the distribution of the biodiversity of its areas.
Another area is to understand the current distribution of its protected areas.
Led by local stakeholders and facilitated and compiled by The Nature Conservancy in partnership with the Isabel Provincial Government, the plan outlines the process of developing the Isabel Ridges to Reefs Conservation Plan.
It provides an overview of the physical, cultural, economic, biodiversity and policy framework for conservation in Solomon Islands as well provides a similar overview for Isabel Province and describes the three stakeholder in relation to the workshops held in 2012.
It also, involves developing a conservation plan that involves understanding of the biodiversity of an area as well comparing the distribution of biodiversity with the current distribution of the protected areas.
This is to show where particular species and ecosystems are left either, unprotected or, under protected.
In the meantime, this conservation plan will provide a tool for guiding future conservation and development efforts throughout Isabel. It is hoped that it will enable the leaders of Isabel to gain local, provincial, national and international support for implementing an Isabel Ridges to Reefs Protected Area Network (IPAN).
Also, Implementing a protected area networks in Isabel will ensure future food and freshwater security and reduce the stress on terrestrial and marine environments, herby increasing the resilience of natural systems to climate change.
These provides a constructive progress regarding Solomon Islands commitment to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the completion of the identification of terrestrial and marine priorities as part of the Program of Work on Protected Areas (PoWPA).
