Livestock Waste Management in East Asia

The project would finance the incremental costs of moving from the business-as-usual approach of ineffectively addressing the environmental problems that are being created by the rapidly increasing large-scale livestock production units to a strategic framework for a livestock production development which is not only economically, but also environmentally sustainable. The scenario would comprise capacity and institution building in the countries concerned; the demonstration and introduction of a better spatial distribution of intensive livestock production to bring the nutrient emission more in line with the adsorptive capacity of the surrounding land; and the use of improved manure management technologies to reduce the environmental damage that industrial livestock activities currently cause. The GEF Alternative would leverage a substantial volume of private sector investment in waste management strategies. Preliminary estimates suggest that the private sector would invest approximately US$ 58.0 million as a direct consequence of the project. Finally, the project’s impact on pollution of the international waters of the East Asian Seas would be substantial, being livestock one of the recognized major sources of water pollution in the coastal areas.