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NGOs FAQ
What is HP?HP is not a charity which has its own projects 'at the coalface'. Rather than compete with the other environment and conservation related charities, we raise money towards specific goals and allow the existing conservation NGOs to bid for these funds. Through this we hope to:
We will use focused and innovative mechanisms to raise funds by engaging indviduals in remote but relevant issues using web2.0 technologies. Individuals will maintain voting rights on where there donation goes and can expect feedback from implementing agencies on what change has been affectd by the projects funded. HP will provide the platform upon which this social engagement in environmental and development issues will take place.          What is Guardian?Our first project, guardian, engages individuals in environmental stewardship and conservation of already designated protected areas. There are more than 76000+ nationally designated protected areas in the world but, in reality, most of these are paper parks without the resources or capacity for effective conservation and many are undergoing rapid change. We will focus in the first instance on managing threats to do with land use change.
guardian provides google earth/maps based technologies to allow individuals to adopt areas from 1 hectare to 10 square kilomters in any of our 76000+ protected areas. Costs start at USD20 per ha/yr. Once the running costs of the charity are taken the remaining (min 90%) of the funds are channelled to implementing organisations.
In return for adopting users have their name, photo and a comment attached to their plot in Google Earth/maps and receive updates on the status of their plot using our remote sensing based land use products (see www.ambiotek.com/unepwcmc). Guardian is supported by UNEP WCMC. Implementing agencies (government parks authorities, national and regional NGOs and community organisations) can bid to the park-based and national funds for projects focusing on sustaining conservation through information and infrastructural improvements, poverty alleviation, education and development projects in and around the parks. There is an initial screening process done by HP and then donors view these bids online and can vote for particular bids over others. How will parks be prioritised?Currently we are using the UNESCO world heritage in danger parks and parks nominated by our implementing partners on the basis of [a] avoidable threat and [b] evidence that funding would make a difference and [c] global significance of the protected area Who decides which projects will be funded
Proposers submit a form indicating how much
money is needed, what will be done and measurable indicators of change. These are vetted online by a panel comprised
of members of our trustees and advisory panels. Projects that meet our criteria go forward to the donors. Projects associated with tied park funds are then capable of receiving donations. Projects associated with open park funds go forward to the donors and the donors
vote on which, if any project is funded in a given year. What happens to the money if no proposals are submitted for a park?For open park fund Guardians, if no proposals are submitted or fundable in a given year then the guardian can opt to shift their donation to another park in the same country. How much needs to be collected before proposals can be submitted for a particular park.
For tied park funds 90% of all donations go to the organisation managing the project and there is no lower limit for this process to begin. For open park funds, the combination of the park fund and the national fund must have 10000 USD before proposals can be submitted by potential implementing organisations for a particular park. How will you check that the funds are spent correctly?
For tied park funds HP undertakes no review but tied park fund partnerships will only be possible with large, well known conservation organisations and these organisations will report their progress to Guardians using our Google-powered systems. Each open park fund proposal needs to define measurable indicators of change brought about through the project. A proportion of the funding is used to a rapid review by another implementing organisation within the region. This review assesses how the money is spent and what has been acheived. Thr project is then ranked according to the review. Projects are expected to communicate impacts of the funded work to the donors who will be able to rate projects. Ratings for previous projects implemented by an organisation will be available to donors voting which projects to fund in a park. Which languages will you support?The website will be available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. It is currently only available in English. How are you linked with other organisations?HP does not implement its own projects, we are not in competition with other environmentals NGOs. Rather we provide funding to implementing agnecies from other NGOs for projects that we and our donors approve for the sustainable protection of protected areas. We thus fund other conservation NGOs. We also involve them in the setting of park priorities, in advising HP and in reviewing projects by other NGOs. Can plots be reserved?Global icons like the top of kilimanjaro will be reserved by HP for auction so that as much money as possible is raised for the park. All other areas are on a first come first served basis. Plots are available at 1 ha, 1km and 10km size with different prices. If someone adopts a 1 ha plot it is immediately unavailable to anyone else. Moreover if a 1ha plot is adopted the 1km plot in which it sits also cannot be purchased nor can the 10km plot in which it sits. There are 100 1ha plots in a 1km plot so if the plot that you are looking for is unavailable you can easily get the plot next to it. For many of the small parks we would want people to buy 1ha plots. Google Earth imagery is not real time so how can it be used for policing?Most of Google's imagery is from 2000 and is 15m resolution. 30% of the earth is covered in high resolution a few metres or less - it is not updated over time just replaced with higher resolution imagery. This happens once per month on average but only for small parts of the globe. We are using other sateliite products that we can process and update ourselves on an annual basis - they do not provide the definition that Googles imagery has but are particularly focused on monitoring land use change which is what we are looking for. The idea is not that donors keep in contact withe the park authorities but that the park authorities report on their activiities made with the donations dorect to the donors. If Healthy Planet was to fold and you've paid your 'lifetime' sponsorship money, what happens?All monies are transferred to the implementing organisations that they have been assigned to and are paid in annual installments as is currently the case. Healthy Planet will remain a small scale inexpensive operation, without debts. Is $10,000 too high to start actions in a park?This only applies to open park funds. This is why we prioritise parks and focus donors in on them. £5000 is very little to do anything substantive especially after the NGO has taken out their costs. Where parks do not gain enough funds for projects to be supported in a particular year, donors have the option to move their donation to another park in the same country or one of our priority parks for that year. They would still be adopting the same plot. How can you ensure that plots are protected in areas with civil war?We cannot guarantee that parks are protected. Some areas suffer forest fires, earthquakes, drought, and civil war - all of which are outside of our control. What HP does is connect individuals with parks so that they can, on the one hand, help to understand and monitor the situation in those parks and secondly help to fund organisations on the ground that are doing their best to ensure those parks get through difficult years. The more people that are involved and the better resourced the parks authorities, the greater the chance that the park will survive difficult periods and still be there in the future. If people are not looking out for them anything can happen. Google Earth and Guardian allows us to know the parks and what is happening to them and take some responsibility for them as individuals rather than relying on the soft words of politicians. In the words of David Attenborough, Google Earth is " a weapon of unparalleled value in the hands of all of us who care about the natural world". At HP we are unleashing the power of technology in protecting life and the quality of life through funding projects that will achieve balance between economic development and the protection of nature and the language,culture and way of life of indigenous cultures who depend on the parks. Where are the 'forests and parks' involved? Are there many of them taking part?Park guardians can choose from 77038 parks throughout the world from 173 countries which include some of the most spectacular places on earth but also parks in your own county and coluntry. Just zoom in using Google Earth or maps and the parks in your area will be shown. Each park is nationally designated as a protected area. We are encouraging guardians to donate for parks that they know or have an attachment to but also for our priority parks which are particularly threatened and in need of investment to secure their continued conservation. The priority parks list is derived from the UNESCO world heritage sites in danger and will change over time as threats to parks change: Comoé National Park, Côte d'Ivoire Ichkeul National Park, Tunisia Air and Ténéré Natural Reserves, Niger Garamba National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo Manas Wildlife Sanctuary, India Salonga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo Salonga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo Okapi Wildlife Reserve, Democratic Republic of the Congo Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park, Central African Republic Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo Simien National Park, Ethiopia Everglades National Park, United States Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, Honduras Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, Guinea Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, Côte d'Ivoire Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary, Senegal Does the scheme only include existing 'protected' areas?Yes - these are areas that are nominally protected but in reality many are so-called 'paper parks' that are marked on a map and in law as protected but in reality are hardly protected at all because of lack of resources and capacity for management and protection. Since they are already protected by national governments there are no issues of neocolonialism (developed country institutions buying up land for conservation in developing countries, thereby excluding that land from use by the developing country nationals. Moreover these areas have been chosen for protection on the basis of their exceptional biodiversity and landscapes. HP aims to provide the funds to enable this protection to be better realised to the benefit of the local communities, the donor and the planet. Is there any kind of official acknowledgment of the land we can 'sponsor'?The concept is about engaging the donor with their plot as a park guardian. The donor has no special priviliges to visit, sell on or do anything with the physical plot of land - the land is owned and managed by national governments. Donors do receive a cerificate from HP indicating that they have adopted the plot, which they can pass on as a gift id the plot is for someone else. We have also put much work into developing systems to allow the user to engage in the protection of the park in which their plot resides by voting to decide which conservation activities are funded by their donation, by engaging with an online community of donors working for that park, by helping to map the park from the comfort of their own home (thus providing the data needed for better management) and by being able to look through satellite derived updates of tree cover and tree cover change in their park (that we provide) Can a sponsor stop anything detrimental that might happen to sponsored land?A sponsor donation goes directly towards projects with local communities and the governmental ministries of environment and parks authorities responsible for the park. The sponsor votes with others sponsoring the park to help decide which project is funded and funded projects work directly to influence activities that would otherwise be detrimental to the park. The sponsor remains engaged in this process and the implementing agency reports back to sponsors on the activities made with their donation and the change that it helped to bring about. All this is acheived seamlessly with our web2.0 based technologies. What developments could be seen viewing your land on Google Earth?We provide updated imagery which is visible in Google Earth (see www.kcl.ac.uk/geodata for examples) and helps us to prioritise to which parks investment is needed and also helps to engage users in the processes of change occurring around their parks. These updates are particularly effective in the case of tropical forests where parks are threatened by large scale deforestation. Will the system impose excessive bureaucratic requirements on implementing organisations (IOs)No, the system is lean and entirely web based. Applications and reporting are kept to the minimum required to acheive our goals. Donors do not get to communicate with IOs except through our fixed feedback procedures. IOs direct donors to our infrastructure which does all of the mapping and plot maintenance etc. Why are you not including private reserves?At least initially we have to focus on parks which have clearly identifiable public (national, regional or community) organisations running them. As we couple with partners in strong NGOs over time we may be able to include some private reserves over time but initially we are most definitely concentrating on nationally designated reserves for which countries have made the decision to protect but may not have the resources to do so. The WDPA does not have my protected areas in it?Please submit any shapefiles on new protected areas to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it for inclusion in updates or use the system at www.wdpa.org If you adopt just one hectare, why is the whole 1km in which it sits unavailable?There are 100 hectares in a square kilometer. If someone buys a hectare no-one else can buy the square kilometer in which it sits or there would be two people sitting on the hectare plots. For small parks we are encouraging people to buy hectares because square kilometers would not bring in sufficient funds. What if donors decide to choose another park or implementing agency each year?We expect some donors to move their donation but we do our utmost to encourage donors to keep there donation in place for the long ter, Also some donors buy in perpetuity rather than annually and this provides long term funding for a park. Long term means as long as is necessary to solve the problem. Each project at the bidding stage will need to indicate how many years of funding are required. If there are sufficient lifetime donors in a park then we can fund long term projects that continue to acheive their goals. We do not want to only fund short term projects if such projects cannot solve the issue at hand. When does the implementing agency recieve the funds?For open park funds a minimum amount needs to be in a park fund before bids can be accepted. Bid rounds are annual. Depending on when the donation is made, the money may go to an agency that year or the next. If no bids are received for a park within two years then the money can go to other parks in the same country for which there are bids. For tied park funds monies go to the predefined implementing organisation every six months. Is there a minimum and maximum grant given?No - this will depend upon the funds available and the funds required to acheive the project goals. |
