Project Location: Eghlid

Background:



This project covers more than one country and the outputs are contributing to SGP GEF 4 Matrix on CCAs.
Five regional reviews of CCAs are presently being funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

The present proposal to the GEF SGP aims at extending these reviews to three additional regions: West/Central Asia, North Africa and South Pacific.

Together with the initial five regions (Mesoamerica, East Himalaya, Southwest China, East Africa and the Arctic region), the overall analysis and development of policy recommendations will contribute to a significant assessment of the status of CCAs throughout the world.


The initiative comprises closely interrelated activities at the local, national, regional and international levels aiming at improved CCA-related practice and policy.

This is part of a larger and more long-term programme on CCAs that CEESP and partners are carrying out, involving
(a)regional reviews and documentation,

(b)national and local field based activities to support CCAs and demonstrate their benefits, and
(c)distillation and dissemination of lessons learnt from these experiences, including guidance to countries for further development of legal, policy, and programmatic measures on CCAs.



This project aims at generating knowledge and promoting supportive policy on Community Conserved Areas?the oldest and possibly least understood form of biodiversity governance around the globe.

This will undoubtedly contribute to ?catalyzing widespread adoption of comprehensive ecosystem management interventions that integrate ecological, economic and social goals to achieve multiple and cross-cutting local, national and global benefits?.



The outcomes of the project fit under the following expected outcomes under a GEF-supported intervention:

• creation of an enabling environment: the generation and dissemination of knowledge about CCAs and the delivering of policy recommendations aims at generating an enabling policy and legislative environment at the national and international levels that will recognize and support CCAs.
  
• Institutional strengthening: the review itself, though workshops in concerned communities, will uplift and strengthen local customary institutions concerned with the management of CCAs.
  
  
  
  The proposed reviews to be financed by the GEF Small Grant Programme are to take place in the following regions:
  
• West/ Central Asia: focus will be on Iran, Afghanistan, selected Central Asian republics and the Arabian Peninsula and their tribal rangeland territories, such as himas, mahjars, qoroqs and ghadaghans.
  
• The Maghreb: focus will be on Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and possibly Lybia, and their traditional conservation areas, such as the forest and pasture agdals in the Atlas Mountains and sacred sites.
  
• Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia: focus will be on Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia and Tuvalu and their varied forms of marine as well as island-based CCAs.
  

The main project location in Iran will be:

• The customary territory of selected Shahsevan Confederation of Tribes in the northwest region
  
• Secondary site will be in the Qashgaie tribe territory