FY 2021 Results: Natural Resources Safeguards and Security

The NRSS programming area promotes and strengthens the value of natural resources as one that should be safeguarded and protected to support the country's long-term economic growth, including increasing resilience to support healthy and prosperous citizens and communities. The three NRSS Outcomes are designed to mutually reinforce each other and ultimately lead to the Goal of strengthening natural resources safeguards and security. The three outcomes of implementing policy, addressing supply chains, and applying enforcement depend on three linked intermediate outcomes, which operate at a lower level and focus on proposing policy, investment and partnerships, and increasing capacity. Laws, policies, regulatory frameworks, and standards implemented and/or enforced is one of the NRSS Outcomes. In FY 2021, Indonesia's Ministry of Environment and Forestry's Directorate General of Ecosystem and Natural Resources Conservation signed a regulation on tenurial conflict handling. The regulation was developed with technical guidelines developed by USAID/Indonesia's Build Indonesia to Take Care of Nature for Sustainability (BIJAK) Activity. BIJAK's technical assistance included pilot projects with the Directorate of Conservation Areas, focusing on participatory rezoning and conservation partnerships. In addition, USAID/Bangladesh's ECOFISH II Activity successfully advocated for the extension of a government-mandated fishing ban for 22 days during October and November, the peak spawning season. The ban was designed to reduce illegal fishing, which decreased the stress on catfish and brood Hilsa populations. ECOFISH II also promoted sustainable livelihoods and fisheries management practices through strengthening local co-management institutions in the fishing communities of the Lower Meghna River Ecosystem and Cox's Bazar, a coastal zone of Bangladesh. Transnational environmental crimes, illegal or legal but unsustainable practices, uses, or consumption of natural resources reduced is another NRSS Outcome. USAID/Asia Bureau funding to INTERPOL built the capacity of governments to utilize INTERPOL's services such as the global announcement of notices to fight crime. As a result, there were 10 Blue Notices, 1 Green Notice, and 17 Red Notices related to crimes that address wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, or illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Conservation and sustainable practices, businesses, trade, and investment implemented is the third NRSS Outcome. USAID/Bangladesh's ECOFISH II Activity helped improve the production of brood Hilsa, which reached a record level of 533,000 tons in 2019-2020. USAID/Indonesia's BIJAK Project and Indonesia's Ministry of Environment and Forestry upgraded Indonesia's online database system, which is used to manage international transport permits for endangered wild animal and plant species. The new database allows registered users to track the progress of permits, and automatically prevents new permit applications from being submitted when annual quotas have been exceeded. In FY 2021, the NRSS programming area made significant progress in improving biophysical conditions, reducing transnational environmental crimes, and implementing conservation and sustainable practices. The programming area contributed to improving biophysical conditions in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Nepal, with four USAID/Cambodia activities helping to improve 1,051,601 hectares of biologically significant areas. The programming area also reduced transnational environmental crimes, with 8,789 people applying improved conservation law enforcement practices as a result of USG assistance. Additionally, the programming area implemented conservation and sustainable practices, with 194,799 hectares under improved natural resource management, safeguards, or sustainable business practices.