PESHAWAR, July 6: An endowment fund of $5 million has been established for extending financial support to communities involved in bio-diversity conservation in Chitral and Gilgit, sources said. Set up under the foreign funded mountain areas conservancy project (MACP), the endowment fund has been created to sustain conservation initiatives undertaken at the grass-root level, through social mobilization, for protecting natural resources in the hilly areas of the country including parts of Gilgit, the headquarters of the Northern Areas (NAs), and Chitral, a far off northern district of the NWFP.

Raja Attaullah Khan, national project manager of MACP, told Dawn that the endowment fund had been set up to ensure that scores of valley conservation committees (VCCs) and women conservation committees (WCCs) should continue getting financial support even after the project was phased out at the close of 2006.

A board of directors comprising 15 members from the public and private sectors and representatives of communities who were involved in conservation of natural resources had been set up to manage the fund.

An investment of $3 million has so far been pledged for the fund, including an amount of $1.5 million by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and $750,000 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), whereas the federal and provincial governments and the administration of the Northern Areas would provide $750,000 for the facility.

The funding agencies have so far provided $2.62 million of the total pledged amount and had been invested in a profit scheme, claimed the project manager.

The project’s management is required to arrange another investment of $2 million to take the size of the endowment fund to $5 million as envisaged under the MACP.

“Foreign donors and corporate sector would be contacted to provide the remaining of the $2 million fund,” said Mr Khan.

Some 63 VCCs and WCCs have been constituted by the mountainous areas’ communities, under the MACP, to conserve bio-diversity by adopting best practices viz-a-viz managing forest, agriculture and grazing lands, fruit orchards, water resources and by carrying out micro infrastructure development projects including irrigation channels, water supply schemes, small water storage reservoirs, roads and bridges, micro hydro power projects and community halls in the remote parts.

Profit earned against the seed money invested in a profit scheme, said Iqmail Hussain Shah, regional project manager, MACF, would be distributed among the conservancy management committees for onward distribution among the VCCs and WCCs to carry out bio-diversity conservation activities in their areas.

Each of the VCCs and WCCs, according to Mr Shah, would establish endowment funds at their level and the profit earned against their fixed investment would be utilized by the entities on the basis of their needs.

“Several of the VCCs have got over Rs1 million in their personal endowment funds and the profit earned against the investment is being utilized on carrying out different small scale activities,” he said.

Launched in 1999 with a cost of $10.35 million, the MACP would end by December 2006 following which the network of community based organizations, established to conserve bio-diversity, would get financial support from the $5 million endowment funds.