Reports from the field (Part 1): Calculating costs for implementing the National Biodiversity Action Plan of Philippines

Annabelle Trinidad is a public finance expert for BIOFIN in the Philippines.

What are the 3 most important activities included in the National Biodiversity Action Plan that support country’s biodiversity conservation?
The three most important activities from our Philippines Biodiversity Action Plan have a direct impact on biodiversity, though this does not diminish the importance of activities that indirectly contribute to biodiversity conservation. Main actions include: i) Restoration of ecosystem's functions, specially in forests (one of the targets is having 0.5 million hectares restored), coastal and marine waters (including coral reef restoration and reversion of illegal fishponds to mangroves) and inland wetlands and peat lands; ii) actions for agrobiodiversity (increase in situ and ex situ sites that conserve and propagate diverse native species and varieties) iii) actions for protected areas (increase coverage and effectiveness of terrestrial and marine protected areas). Equally important are actions that strengthen the access and promotion of benefit-sharing protocols, institutions and systems as a potential mechanism for creating wealth and income; and the promotion on best practices in biodiversity conservation.

Can you tell us more what costing exactly entails and how this work can support governmental actions?
In order to calculate Philippines Biodiversity Strategy's implementation costs, we focused on having a good understanding and consensus about all activities and sub activities considered as actions. We call these “costable” activities, expressed in standardized costs' unit such as: personnel costs, consultants, travel, meetings, workshops, communication expenses, and some equipment. Furthermore the BIOFIN planning horizon is consistent with government's planning periods. We worked with the existing, standard accounting governmental structures; this allowed government representatives a better process' appreciation and use of some our numbers as bases for their own work planning. In the Philippines, this costing work is a new feature in the third version of the National Biodiversity Strategy planning process. This shows an enhanced level of governmental commitment to actually pursue the activities included in the strategy. With the support of BIOFIN, the costing (process and final estimates) was vetted by various government agencies, NGO, academy and private sector partners.

What are the main findings of your study on Philippines National Biodiversity Plan costing?
We have costed the annual average funding requirement, indicating whether these were short term, medium term or long term funding needs. For the Philippines, the total financial needs are at least 20x more than the total budget of the main agency mandated to manage biodiversity, which is the Department of Environment’s Biodiversity Management Bureau. We have also compared the PBSAP requirements with ecosystem services values of selected ecosystems such as coastal and forest ecosystems and conclude that the costs needed to implement the strategy are insignificant when compared to the value of the potential loss the country may incur due to inaction.The costs are presented per thematic area, of which we have 9: (1) access and benefits sharing, (2) agrobiodiversity, (3) coastal/marine, (4) caves, (5) inland wetlands, (6) forests, (7) invasive alien species, (8) urban biodiversity, and (9) protected areas. Projected implementation costs are also presented per Aichi target. 

'Reports from the field' is a serie of interviews with local BIOFIN experts and biodiversity practitioners about NBSAPs costing exercises in the participant countries. The series highlight the national efforts, results and challenges on biodiversity costing.