NBSAP IMPLEMENTATION PROGRAM ? INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES

The project is financially supported by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) ^[1]

Project Overview

Socio-economic crisis over the last 10-15 years has severely affected Georgia?s species and natural habitats. Unsustainable use of biological resources (extensive poaching and habitat destruction) for various rationales has been a major factor for the dramatic decline of a number of species and for the loss of ecosystems? integrity. However, poor law enforcement, low public awareness, low capacity within the state regional environmental agencies, nonexistence of  facilities for providing biodiversity services and information to the public, and underdeveloped biodiversity related NGO sector in the regions of Georgia are major underlying reasons.

Poor law enforcement greatly affects the implementation of biodiversity related international treaties and ensuing national policy documents in the country. Sometimes State and regional budgets fail to provide sufficient support for the implementation of these policies. Nevertheless law enforcement targeted at the conservation of species and habitats on the ground could still be improved should local government agencies have sufficient capacity, awareness and desire to involve local communities in addressing local conservation problems (including participatory planning of local budgets with biodiversity conservation components). On the other hand, local governments have no guiding line for solving site-specific issues since local species conservation strategies derived from the NBSAP are nonexistent. 

Non-existent or weak biodiversity related NGO sector in the regions severely undermines on-the-ground implementation of international treaties and relevant national policies (in particular species and habitats? conservation measures). NGO sector?s low capacity to perform a go-between role and to work as a public awareness promoter permits the gap between the local governments and the communities to increase.

Levels of biodiversity NGOs? organizational development leave much to be desired. In addition neither of biodiversity NGOs has any skills nor facilities to network with each other, share information on their activities and act in one front for biodiversity conservation whether at the national or local level. It goes without saying that the Environmental Protection Organizations have even less experience in local biodiversity problem solving, however their gung-ho is remarkable.

Poor awareness among the communities directly determines the situation described above. Most of the development projects in the regions (both government-managed and private) often fail to take into account species and habitats? concerns. This is in turn facilitated by local people?s poor understanding of the values of biodiversity and/or lack of skills to get mobilized to demand participation in decision-making process or to monitor activities that are already underway. In parallel, there is a great need of model conservation initiatives that would create local incentives elsewhere in the country and demonstrate that significant difference can be achieved even with little money but through strong motivation and local mobilization.

In response, NACRES begins implementation of a two year project ? ?NBSAP Implementation Program ?International Conventions and Local Communities?. The project aims at the promotion of biodiversity conservation in Georgia through development of local NGO/CBO sector and its involvement in participatory planning/implementation of measures for:

• strengthening mechanisms for the implementation of species and habitats conservation activities on the ground as defined by key international conventions and corresponding national policies

and

• mitigation and monitoring of development projects in selected areas.

The main strategy of the project is to develop 12 NGO/CBOs capacities in the target areas of Svaneti, Khevsureti, Racha and Adjara Autonomus Republic to successfully implement requirements of international treaties and national biodiversity policies on the ground, to monitor development projects in the target areas, and to increase biodiversity awareness among local resource users and the general public.

[1] ?The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund is a joint initiative of Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan, the MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank. A fundamental goal is to ensure civil society is engaged in biodiversity conservation?.