June 2007, Juan D. Quintero | The World Bank Group
Eight infrastructure projects with outstanding natural habitat conservation practices were examined in depth to evaluate the mechanisms and approaches responsible for their environmental successes. The wide range of World Bank-financed projects included a hydroelectric dam, a gas pipeline, flood protection works, roads and drainage works, as well as water supply and sewerage investments, in both urban and rural settings across seven countries in the Latin America and Caribbean Region (LCR).
Results from this review show that integrating natural habitat issues into the design and operation of infrastructure projects can both substantially reduce the associated environmental costs and create win-win results for conservation and development. Specifically, infrastructure projects can provide and/or leverage important resources that might not be available for strictly “green” projects, resulting in a significant conservation gain.
Breaking common perceptions, these projects redefine the role of infrastructure development with regard to conservation. Good design, as well as innovative engineering construction and operational techniques, were devised specifically to avoid natural habitats, reduce the area of the disturbed sites, minimize the magnitude and extent of unavoidable impacts, and mitigate all remaining impacts. Project resources were mobilized to carry out restoration projects, endangered species conservation action plans, environmental education and awareness programs, identification of non-catalogued sensitive areas, establishment of new protected areas along with the provision of their management plans, comanagement agreements, recurrent costs financing, personnel training, and provision of initial funds. In many cases these actions were embedded within more profound changes that involved raising institutional environmental standards, revising legal frameworks and creating new divisions to address environmental issues. These case studies demonstrate that leveraging funds from infrastructure projects can be highly effective in benefiting conservation efforts.
