This is why the Sustainable Development of Protected Areas System of Ethiopia was set up, with support from the Global Environment Fund and UNDP. The project is spearheading a suite of interventions, focusing on the national system in terms of capacity building and training, and integrating the protected area system into mainstream development. Since the initiation of the project in 2008, valuation exercises have found that the main value of protected areas is in the environmental services that they provide to poor rural communities, many of which are food-insecure, protected areas were incorporated into the Ethiopia Poverty Strategy, and the legal boundaries of the protected area system were strengthened by supporting the demarcation and gazettement of four areas through a highly consultative process (UNDP, n.d.).