World Wildlife Fund

Bhutan Trust Fund

Temperate forests at higher elevations in Central Bhutan
© WWF-Canon / Anton Fernhout

In 1991, WWF created and established the world's first conservation trust fund in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. Financed through a $1 million investment from WWF, as well as investments from the Global Environment Facility, World Bank, the Royal Government of Bhutan, and the governments of Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, the trust fund provides Bhutan with an autonomous financial mechanism through which to fund local conservation activities. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) provided initial administrative support and has since served in an advisory capacity.

The trust fund's permanent endowment (approximately $32 million) generates at least $1.5 million annually to support biodiversity conservation programs in Bhutan. The agreement establishing the trust fund includes a legal covenant by the Royal Government of Bhutan that it will maintain 60 percent of Bhutan's 77.9 million acres under permanent forest cover in perpetuity (a total of 48.1 million acres protected). The trust fund has helped to finance the conservation and improved management of these forested areas, supporting activities that include:

• training foresters, ecologists, natural resource managers and other professionals;
• surveys of Bhutan's forest resources and development of an ecological information base;
• review of the protected area system, and development and implementation of conservation management plans;
• institutional support for community management;
• environmental education and public awareness campaigns; and
• projects integrating conservation and development.