Belarus’ capacity to conserve wetland biodiversity in its network of wetland reserves will be significantly increased thanks to a new large–scale project of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF).

At a two–day project launching workshop held yesterday and today in Luninets, Brest region, project partners committed to creating an enabling environment for sustaining the national system of wetland nature protected areas in Belarusian Polesie – an area spanning from southern Belarus to northern Ukraine.

This will be achieved through an improvement of the national legislation and land–tenure practice, in particular, through the correction of the methods of forestry and agriculture management.

The project, which is to be implemented within 5 years, will test concrete approaches to biodiversity conservation at four national wetland reserves – “Mid–Pripyat”, “Sporovsky”, “Zvanetz” and “Prostyr” located in the Brest and Gomel regions.

Head of the International Cooperation Desk of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Alexander Rachevsky stressed the tight connection between the project goals and tasks with the national priorities in the sphere of creation and management of specially protected natural territories, as well as with the provisions of the 2006–2010 National action plan on environmental protection.

UNDP Deputy Resident Representative, Levan Bouadze, said: “Providing assistance in dealing with ecological problems and conserving the unique natural heritage is one of the priorities of the UNDP Office in Belarus. The new project aims not only at assisting in the conservation of particularly valuable ecosystems and wildlife of Polesie reserves, but also at working out a sustainable strategy of disseminating the successful results around the country.”

Workshop participants agreed that the integration of biodiversity conservation concerns in the economic management of selected wetland reserves will significantly strengthen the whole system of Belarus’ specially protected natural territories – 60–75% of which share similar concerns.

The project will be funded by the GEF in the amount of USD 2,191,500 while relevant Belarus government bodies have committed USD 8,939,000 in Belarusian rubles.

The workshop was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Ministry of Forestry, local authorities, NGOs and scientific institutions. They were familiarizing themselves with the project goals and tasks, implementation plans and the main indicators of results achievement. A trip to one of the project areas – “Sporovsky” zakaznik (nature reserve) – was also scheduled within the framework of the workshop.

For more information, please contact the project manager Aleksei Artushevsky, at 8–29–677–10–99, or UNDP Communications Associate, Vladislav Khilkevich, at 227–38–17.

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