BACKGROUND INFORMATION

History or To Be History
The island of Papua New Guinea has been recognized as one of the global "hotspots" of biodiversity. Although Papua New Guinea now represents the world's third largest block of tropical rainforest and one of the most important reef complexes on the planet, it has one of the lowest proportions of its area protected than any country in the world.

The Reality
There is now a grave danger in losing the biological diversity to unsustainable use of natural resources brought on by human population explosion, destructive technological advancement, commercial logging and deforestation, commercial mining, mineral exploration and extraction, commercial fishing, habitat destruction, over harvesting, commercial agriculture and farming, dumping of waste, introduction of invasive species, Land Air & Water pollution and many more environmental degradation factors.

The Emergence of SCCP
The initial design of this capacity building program was therefore based on a consultation among key stakeholders (national and international NGOs and government institutions) in PNG, carried out in March 2001. This planning workshop was attended by 23 representatives from 12 organizations, and the group spent three days discussing the design of this initiative based on an analysis of existing needs, opportunities and gaps.

Consequently, the conservation community in PNG has recognized and initiated a number of training themes. Moreover, there is also the appreciation among NGOs working on conservation and development issues that there is a need to capsulate experiences, synergize, expand and institutionalize these initiatives in order to increase their impact. It builds on current initiatives, draws on the strengths of different players and proposes a partnership mechanism to try and link up the various elements of capacity building that are ongoing or planned in the country. The entire project planning and design process, therefore, has involved key stakeholders - a principle that the project will continue to strive for during implementation.