Capacity Building for Sustainable Management of Mountain Watersheds in Central Asia and the Caucasus

Project symbol: GCP/SEC/002/TUR
Participating countries: Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan
Project duration: 20 Jan 2012 - 31 Dec 2014
Donor: Government of Turkey

Photo © vpzone/Flickr

Background

Project countries in Central Asia (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan) and West Asia (Azerbaijan and Turkey) are mainly mountainous countries which are shaped by the arid and semi-arid climatic conditions and low forest covers. In the regional countries, the percentage of local people living in mountainous areas is very high and their livelihood is mainly based on utilization of natural resources. These watershed areas in Central Asia and the Caucasus are facing severe degradation through the impacts of climate change and overuse of the natural resources, which lead to loss of soil, water and biodiversity resources and deterioration of the food security and livelihoods of the local communities as well as of the people living in downstream areas who are heavily dependent on the main rivers and streams fed by the mountain areas.

This Regional project is a partnership between FAO, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Turkey (MoEF), the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TİKA) and the participating countries which are partnering in the project through their line ministries responsible for forestry, land and water management including watershed management.

The project

The project “Capacity Building for Sustainable Management of Mountain Watersheds in Central Asia and the Caucasus” (CBSMMWCAC) is funded by the FAO/Turkey Partnership Programme (FTPP) established over an initial period of five years (2007–2011) at the benefit of the countries assisted by the FAO Subregional Office for Central Asia (FAO/SEC).

The expected long-term impact of the project is the decreased degradation and losses of soil, water and biodiversity resources, increased environmental, social and economic benefits from rehabilitated and sustainably managed mountain watersheds in both upstream and downstream areas in the project countries.

Objectives

The CBSMMWCAC project aims to increase Public awareness and interest of policy and decision makers and enhance knowledge and experiences of forestry and other related agencies about integrated (multidisciplinary) and collaborative approaches to the  implementation, rehabilitation and sustainable management of mountain watersheds. In particular the project foresees 4 main outputs:

• Review of existing watershed management experiences, technical guidelines and institutional setup as well as of the needs in the project countries.
• Increase awareness, knowledge, experience, capacity and commitment of decision makers and selected specialists (more than 100) of the Forestry Departments and related agencies in the project countries about the approaches and methodologies for planning and implementation of integrated (multi-disciplinary) and participatory rehabilitation and sustainable management of mountain watersheds;
• Prepare an integrated-participatory watershed rehabilitation plan and start its implementation on pilot/demonstration basis in a representative micro-catchment area in one of the project countries;
• Develop of awareness raising, capacity building and training material.