USAID RDM/A Regional Environment Office Weekly Report Week Ending October 5, 2007

ASEAN-WEN Featured on the Discovery Channel. The USAID-supported ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) and associated task forces are featured in "Crime Scene Wild,” a new six-part series on Discovery Channel TV. The first episode aired on October 1, 2007, throughout Europe, parts of Africa, and in the Middle East, and will continue broadcasting for the next five weeks on Monday evenings. Steve Galster, Chief of Party for the ASEAN-WEN Support Program, is the host of the series, and takes the estimated 150 million viewers around the globe to team up with local law enforcement agencies and conservation groups to track down major wildlife criminals. Countries featured in the series include: United States, United Kingdom, Thailand, Cambodia, China, Taiwan, India, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Kyrgyzstan. "Crime Scene Wild" focuses on the illegal trade in elephant ivory, bush meat, big cats, great apes, Tibetan antelope, and sharks. The show highlights the need for better cross-border law enforcement cooperation across the globe in order to tackle what has become one of the world's largest black market crimes.

First Efficiency Improvement Loan Contract Signed by LWUA in the Philippines. The Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) signed the first efficiency improvement program (EIP) loan contract with Laguna Water District (LWD) on October 1, 2007, in Quezon City, Philippines. The contract is for a P10 million (about $217,000) loan and P9.25 million (about $201,000) in equity to finance a range of efficiency improvement activities including pumping, treatment, service connections, power supply, and instituting a marketing program and anti-pilferage and disconnection program. The loan is being made under LWUA’s Window 4 lending facility, otherwise known as the EIP Window. USAID’s Environmental Cooperation-Asia (ECO-Asia) Program assisted LWUA in establishing the new lending strategy and loan product to provide financial assistance to less creditworthy water districts. The EIP lending facility will build bankable water utilities by focusing on efficiency improvements before they embark on expansion programs. The second batch of EIP packages is currently being prepared by LWUA with the assistance of ECO-Asia and should be finalized before the end of 2007. In his speech, The General Manager of LWD thanked USAID and LWUA for facilitating the EIP loan and for assisting the water district to strive for efficiency improvement. The LWUA Administrator thanked LWD for its active participation in the program and expressed his hope that through the new facility more water districts will be assisted by LWUA in improving their operations.

Nepal Joins Asian Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network. The Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology of Nepal has joined the USAID-funded Asian Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network (AECEN). The Ministry assigned the Joint Secretary of the Law and Convention Division to serve as their representative to AECEN. Established in 2005, AECEN works to promote improved compliance with environmental legal requirements in Asia through regional exchange of innovative policies and practices.

Scientists Gain New Understanding of Seismic Risks and Revise Hazard Maps for Southeast Asia. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has revised seismic hazard maps for Southeast Asia. This new understanding of seismic risk in the region will assist engineers in designing buildings and developing building codes to resist strong ground shaking, which will reduce structural damage and societal losses from large earthquakes in the future. The maps are the result of collaboration between USGS and local scientists and engineers in the Indian Ocean Region to develop and apply new predictive seismic models and to incorporate new ground-motion prediction equations. The maps presented in the report differ significantly from many pre-existing maps, so open forums were held throughout 2006 and 2007 to encourage extensive discussions with local experts. Building code officials have been receptive to these discussions and are now considering updating the codes in Thailand and Indonesia to incorporate this information. USGS implemented the Southeast Asia Seismic Hazard Project under the USAID-funded US Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System Program to strengthen technical expertise on assessing seismic risks and developing seismic hazard maps.

Sustainable Coastal Livelihoods Program Turns Over Community Learning Center to Local Community. On September 20, 2007, the Kamphuan Tambon Administration Office in Ranong, Thailand hosted a ceremony at the Kamphuan Community Learning Center to bid a warm farewell to the field staff of USAID’s Sustainable Coastal Livelihoods (SCL) Program. The ceremony was attended by the Ranong Province governor representative, local community members and community leaders. Following 30 months of working in the area, the program is reducing its presence in Kamphuan because the community has in large part recovered from the 2004 tsunami. The program was successful in being able to assist the populace to “build back better” and the community is now cleaner, more economically diversified and resilient than it was pre-tsunami. As part of the ceremony, the SCL Program officially transferred ownership of the newly constructed Kamphuan Community Learning Center and a small office building to local officials. After the ceremony, members of the community planted 80 trees on the Learning Center Grounds to celebrate the formulation of the Kamphuan Community Learning Center Foundation. This being the holy month of Ramadan, members of the community broke their daily fast with a dinner held at the Center followed by a prayer at the Tsunami Museum of the learning center. The newly formed Kamphuan Community Learning Center Foundation will continue to provide educational programs at the center on such topics as livelihoods improvement, computer skills, English language, Community-based Disaster Management, and environmental education.

Participants from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand Participate in US Study Tour on Watershed Services. USAID’s Asia Regional Biodiversity Program (ARBCP) and the US Forest Service (USFS) held a Watershed Payment for Environmental Services (PES) study tour for seven participants from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand in Honolulu, Hawaii; Portland, Oregon; and New York City. Participants learned how to value economic demand for increasingly scarce watershed services and mobilize public support for securing them with tangible economic incentives. Interagency cooperation and various forms of public-private partnerships and legislative support for private sector involvement in service delivery were strongly emphasized. The ARBCP is working with the five Vietnamese study tour participants to implement lessons learned to mobilize and convert private sector demand for these services, and to design PES mechanisms with the water utilities, hydropower, and industrial development sectors in the Dong Nai River Basin. The ARBCP and the USFS will provide on-going training to establish the participatory and scientific basis for further development of this market-based approach to natural resource conservation. Development of field-based watershed PES mechanisms and the science-based monitoring approach learned on the study tour will provide the basis for the program’s efforts to help the Vietnamese government develop supporting legislation and local level, government, and private sector capacity building needed to transfer lessons learned. Partners in Cambodia will consolidate lessons learned to educate the public and build support for applying the Vietnamese model to local conditions with further ARBCP and USFS support.

Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade Program Supports Landmark EU-China Conference on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance. USAID’s Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT) Program, supported a landmark EU-China Conference on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance, which was held in Beijing from September 19-21, 2007. The conference brought together 270 participants from relevant government agencies, businesses, research institutions, NGOs, and international agencies and attracted 10 Ministerial-level participants from China, Germany, UK, the Republic of Portugal, Sweden, Indonesia, Malaysia, Ghana, and Russia. The conference highlighted the fact that illegal logging and trade is shared problem between timber producers, timber processors, the ultimate consumers of timber products, and the member countries of the EU. The RAFT program is working to help these parties to develop a shared response to illegal logging and the associated trade so that consumers can be assured that they are buying good rather than bad wood.