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Environmentally Sustainable Development |
| Read more about the GEF Small Grants Programme Read more about UNDP Thailand’s project on Lanta Island |
While Thailand has enjoyed remarkable growth over the past quarter-century, making the country an economic leader and prominent development partner in the region, this growth has not come without a cost.
Rapid development, urbanisation, and the spread of industrial activity have had a serious impact on the country’s people and ecosystems. Much of the country’s forest cover has been lost, while roughly half of Thailand’s rivers and lakes are classified as having poor water quality. There is overuse of land and water and a lack of planning in certain sectors.
Climate change threatens to have a major impact on Thailand, especially its low-lying central region, which is also the most fertile area of the country, and coastal areas which are prone to flooding due to rising sea levels. Consequently, energy conservation, conservation technologies and alternative energy are now some of the highest-profile issues and areas of green activity in Thailand.
With a new constitution that mandates improved environmental governance, Thailand is attempting to reverse these trends while decentralising the process of environmental decision-making.
Current Programme
UNDP is working closely with the government and NGOs as a partner in these efforts. The environment programme under the 2007-2011 UNDP Thailand Country Programme has set targets for supporting national mechanisms in environmental policy and regulation, community management of natural resources, and developing knowledge management around environmental initiatives and policy advocacy.
Specific projects include building national capacity to facilitate the implementation of obligations under international environmental conventions (project brief, project document ) and supporting policies and dialogues on new climate change initiatives (project brief, project document).
Under the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) Resource Allocation Framework, US$ 23.9 million has been committed to Thailand through 2010 for two focus areas: biodiversity and climate change. UNDP is working closely with Thai partners to develop projects in these two areas. Projects currently supported by the GEF in Thailand include a project focusing on supporting renewable energy in Mae Hong Son province (project brief, project document). Another project gauges Thailand’s capacity and knowledge about biodiversity and helps build a national plan to close information gaps (project brief, project document).
The environment programme also manages projects funded by the GEF’s Small Grants Programme. The focus is on demonstration of community-based natural resources and environmental management, community networking and knowledge sharing. Read More
To help mobilize the potentially significant benefits of carbon finance for the developing world, UNDP has established the MDG Carbon Facility, an innovative mechanism for the development and commercialization of emission reduction projects. The facility is being launched in Thailand beginning in September 2007.
The environment programme has been working with the Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization, the newly established public organization with the mandate to promote Clean Development Mechanism in Thailand, to link this global initiative to benefit municipalities across the country.
Environmental projects as part of reconstruction efforts following the December 2004 tsunami were wrapped up by June 2006. Additional support was provided during the recovery phase in the form of a project to strengthen the resilience of communities on Lanta Island through the development of water resources, undertaken with the support of the Coca-Cola Company and the UN Foundation, which has now been taken over by the communities themselves. Read More
Another project, a regional initiative to protect coastal ecosystems, “Mangroves for the Future”, was launched in December 2006 under the auspices of the UNDP regional centre and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Read More
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