Community Marine Protected Area at Helen Reef: designing a long-term sustainable financing mechanism

To support community management of the Helen Reef atoll in Palau’s Hatohobei State as a marine conservation area, CI and partners are developing a long-term marine conservation agreement (MCA) defining community commitments to natural resource management in exchange for direct incentives provided by conservation investors.

Parallel investments in socioeconomic development help make conservation viable for the community. NGOs like CI broker the agreements and ensure monitoring of agreement compliance as well as ecological and livelihood impacts. A trial MCA is now in place between the people of Hatohobeu (the Tobians) and partner organization OneReef.

To make possible a long-term agreement, CI will help design a financing mechanism for the MCA consisting of a trust fund with revolving and endowed components, proposed to be housed as a sub-account within the Micronesia Conservation Trust as part of CI’s commitment to the Micronesia Challenge.

The project will focus on designing operating and oversight provisions of the trust fund, to ensure that it meets the needs of the Tobian people while securing the confidence of conservation investors. Drawing from its extensive experience designing financing mechanisms, CI will work with the Tobian community and OneReef to test and refine the mechanism.