Asian Conservation Company (ACC)

This project is sponsored by the Asian Conservation Company (ACC), which is a private equity investment holding company. The company purchases majority ownership of companies operating in areas of significant marine biodiversity in the Philippines. The total cost of this project is about US$ 20.5m with IFC providing US$4.5 of Global Environment Facility (GEF) financing. The project is conserving significant coastal and marine biodiversity in several regions of the Philippines through a partnership between ACC and two local non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

While ACC will provide a financial return to investors it will also generate a conservation return in terms of improved protection and conservation of ecologically-important marine habitats. The participating NGO is carrying out conservation work with the IFC/GEF grant funding and co-financing from the ACC's portfolio companies. These portfolio companies will provide some of their revenues to the endowment fund that is managed by the NGO.

The project activities include protected area management, provision of environmental education, development of alternative livelihood, marine surveillance, biological monitoring and the establishment of financial sustainability mechanism. The project is being implemented in two tranches:

• Tranche-1 (US$1.6m from GEF) is implemented in El Nido, Palawan by El Nido Foundation with 19 coastal communities.

• Tranche-2 will be implemented by WWF-Philippines in 5 sites within the Visayan Sea. All the project sites contain significant marine biodiversity and fishing communities who are stakeholders to the project.

This is a 6 year project which began in July 2004.

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