Minsk, 14 April 2006 - A new UNDP project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) will help Belarus address the problem of peatlands degradation and will contribute to Belarus’ fulfillment of its obligations under the three UN international environmental conventions: on biodiversity, on climate change, and on combating desertification and land degradation.

An inception workshop of the project “Renaturalization and Sustainable Management of Peatlands in Belarus to Combat Land Degradation, Ensure Conservation of Globally Valuable Biodiversity, and Mitigate Climate Change” was held on 11-12 April in Lida (Grodno region). The purpose of the workshop was to agree the project strategy and objectives with the key stakeholders including the Ministry of Forestry, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (UK) and others.

“The project will allow for sound land management and preservation of bio-diversity taking into account for social and economic interests of local households,” First Deputy Minister of Forestry, Nikolay Kruk, said. “It will cover 17 pilot sites and will draw upon domestic and international experience. We are therefore convinced that the project will be successfully implemented.”

The project will help address a number of important tasks. It will demonstrate the feasibility of rehabilitation of wetland ecosystems damaged by human activity on the basis of over 40,000 hectares of peatlands degraded through land reclamation. In addition, it will allow for the reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) resulting from peat mineralization.

The project will also create the conditions for the restoration of the populations of globally significant flora and fauna species and provide a solution to the problem of peat fires caused by the lowering of ground water level as a result of land reclamation works.

“The project is intended to demonstrate the feasibility of integrated solution to the globally significant problems. This can be achieved only through coordinated efforts at the local, regional and global levels,” UNDP Deputy Resident Representative, Levan Bouadze, stressed.

The project is expected to generate a strategy for rehabilitation and sustainable management of degraded peatlands in Belarus and enable replication of the experience on a broader scale in the region. On top of that, the project will help assess the prospects and feasibility of using GHG emission reductions under the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol which Belarus joined in 2005.

Background: According to official data, Belarus has 400,000 hectares of drained peatlands and inefficiently managed agricultural lands that are in critical condition. An average of 11,500 fires has occurred annually over the last 10 years.

For further information please contact Assistant Project Manager of the UNDP Project Olga Stepaniuk, tel.: 8-29-678-16-85 or UNDP Public Information Assistant Vladislav Khilkevich, tel.: (+375 17) 227-38-17.

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