In capacity building sessions, LSO will include dramas and games to engage the target community in management of biodiversity including wildlife and natural resources management.
LSO has given prime importance to involvment of youth in project design and implementation. Such as, LSO has already mobilized three qualified youth staff for the position of social worker, project manager and trainer. In next step of our project, LSO planned to include 50 % youth as trainees for capacity building training in the target community.
Inovative Financial Mechanisms
LSO will use the ranger station to conduct trainings, meetings and information sharing events, enhancing local community awareness on:
-biodiversity conservation
-prohibition on hunting
-prohibition on cutting trees, shrubs and brushes. The ranger station will prementanly acts as information hub for tourists and visitors to northern plateau where the responsible ragner will give awareness to visitors about Band-e-Amir's wildlife and natural resources.
Gender Focus
Men are involved in hard labor like construction, agriculture, and pasturing animals. However, women are involved in household chores and rarely in social decision making. In order to address gender unbalance in this project, LSO has planned to encourage women and girls members of CDCs ( 50%) to participate in capacity building sessions.
Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods
Part of the project, 3 labors and 1 mason will earn wages for constructing ranger station in Northern plateau. As well as, 3 staff of local community will earn salary for 16 months.
Capacity - Building Component
The community in target area have rich traditional knowldedge on biodiversity and wild life. The capacity support to be provided under this grant will include: Building the capacity of community leaders on landscape management and wildlife conservation in terms of technical skills. For which, we are planning to develop a comprehensive development plan on conservation and management of the target area landscape within the training held in consultation with WCS.
Project sustainability
The plan developed the capacity of community leaders including CDCs and enabled them to manage their biodiversity and wildlife such as construction of ranger station and holding capacity building training which provided them the lifelong facility for their coordination and information / knowledge sharing purposes.
Replication of project activities
The project advocacy capacity building sessions will be replicated into other locations (villages) of Northern Plateau.
Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment
Through distribution of posters and brochure on conservation of wild life and environment, LSO will maximize public awareness.
Project Results
The overall goal of this project was to promote conservation efforts in the landscape by developing the capacity of community rangers. The project objectives were to conserve the biodiversity of northern Band-e-Amir proposed protected area by development of the capacity of local communities to actively engage in development and management of the targeted landscape, and construction of ranger station for local rangers to improve their capacity to manage and conserve the natural resources and wildlife in targeted areas.
Around 30 ranger have been trained on conservation and management of landscape by convening capacity development workshops. A total of 1500 individuals (760 female & 740 male) knowledge and understanding developed by holding 27 awareness raising sessions. A total of 5 advocacy meetings with local Shuars on conservation efforts conducted with participation of local rangers, Community Development Council members, Mullas and women and youth groups, contributed to improved landscape conservation. Through these interventions, the key threats ahead of conservation efforts (i.e. traditional norms, lack of public awareness, and new generation ignorance and lack of awareness on importance of natural resources) identified and considered into our awareness plan. As result, the targeted rangers raised their capacity on landscape management as well as its negative consequences like flash flood, soil erosion, and natural disasters if natural resources are not protected.
Moreover, the awareness raising sessions mentioned above were the effective way to increase community awareness on importance of natural resources and landscape conservation, and its negative consequences if natural resources not protected.
A total of 10 rangers based in Dehbebood village, using the constructed ranger station as their coordinating office for managing the conservation efforts in 9 big communities of Northern Plateau.
Active participation of key stakeholders including Wildlife Conservation Society and National Protection Agency (NEPA) have also played important role in achieving project objectives. The technical support, we have received in construction of ranger station and conducting of ranger capacity building made it possible to achieve our goal, they participated actively and discussed the key causes and challenges ahead of landscape conversation in detail, ways to address them also decided. The stakeholders facilitated the path to work with community actors and NEPA, for providing better conservation efforts. For instance, National Environment Protection Agency indicated its support by issuing a support letter and requested community for support letters. NEPA also had regular monitoring and oversight from implementation of activities including construction of ranger station and capacity building.
