By Julie Shaw
Armenia has established two new protected areas that will not only help globally threatened species, but will also protect water resources, provide job opportunities and potentially nurture transboundary cooperation in a region rife with political tension.
Both parks—Arevik National Park and Zangezur Sanctuary—are in the southernmost region of Armenia, and Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) grant recipients worked toward their declaration as protected areas.
The WWF Caucasus Program, which headed the regional implementation team for the recently completed five-year,$8.5 million CEPF investment in the Caucasus biodiversity hotspot, has been working toward the establishment of the protected areas since 2002 in collaboration with the Ministry of Nature Protection of Armenia, Syunik Regional administration, local environmental groups, communities and donors.
“Southern Armenia is one of the key priority conservation areas in the Caucasus,” said Nugzar Zazanashvili, conservation director of the WWF Caucasus Program. He added that the creation of these protected areas creates a strong basis for developing an ecological network in the South Caucasus.
Arevik National Park, at about 34,000 hectares, is on Armenia’s borders with Iran and Azerbaijan. It encompasses broad-leaf forest, Juniper open woodlands, subalpine and alpine meadows, semidesert and mountain steppes. Caucasian leopards, vulnerable Bezoar goats, brown bears, lynx and wild cats are among its residents, as well as more than 1,500 species of vascular plants.
CEPF grantee Ecotourism Association Public Organization helped the government in establishing the park. Its efforts included inventorying biological resources of the proposed area and surroundings, clarification of the boundaries and creation of a digital map for the area; development of a management plan in close collaboration and consultation with stakeholders, and provision of professional development and training for protected area staff.
The 17,368-hectare Zangezur Sanctuary is on the border with Azerbaijan. Grantee Khustup Nature Protection NGO helped the government with management planning for the protected area. The park is important as not only as home to the Armenian mouflon, which number only about 200-250 in the wild in Armenia, but also as host to four high mountain lakes that serve as fresh water reservoirs. A variety of other rare and endemic flora and fauna can be found there as well.
With the declaration of these parks, the total of new protected areas achieved in the Caucasus Hotspot in part through the efforts of CEPF grantees grew to 70,000 hectares, with another 160,000 hectares in the pipeline.
Another CEPF grantee, the Fund for Biodiversity Conservation of the Armenian Highland, provided financial support to the villages surrounding these areas to launch new, sustainable sources of income, such as bee-keeping, pomegranate processing and tourism development.
The surrounding communities also stand to benefit from the establishment of the parks.
“Establishment of the two protected areas in the most remote part of Armenia will contribute to stabilization of livelihoods for local people of the southernmost region through development of tourism/ecotourism, creation of new job opportunities and creation of transboundary collaboration,” said Karen Manvelyan, the national coordinator for CEPF’s investment in Armenia.
The location of these new protected areas also provides new opportunities for cooperation and the easing of tensions between Armenia and its neighbors. Both Arevik and Zangezur border or are very close to Ordubad National Park in Azerbaijan, and Arevik borders the Kiamaky protected area in Iran.
The Broader CEPF Investment
Increasing transboundary cooperation was one of the chief goals of the CEPF investment in the Caucasus. An assessment of the results of the investment is under way following an assessment workshop held in Tbilisi, Georgia September 28-29. In addition to the new Armenian protected areas, results initially identified include:
- Initiation and strengthening of transboundary cooperation, such as the establishment of the regional Caucasus Biodiversity Council with representatives of government and non-governmental organizations from nations in the region, including Iran.
- Training of more than 200 journalists and 120 journalism students across the hotspot in environmental and biodiversity conservation issues.
- Reconciling of development and biodiversity, including the rerouting of a road planned for the Shikahogh Reserve in Armenia and mitigation of the anticipated impacts of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
- Development of alternative livelihoods for local communities, including creation of a sustainable hunting area in the Gabala-Ismailli area in Azerbaijan; the establishment of a quail farm and training for community members as ecotourism guides in the Hyrcan Corridor of Azerbaijan; and creation of a honey-production farm in the Kvareli district in Georgia.
- Leveraging of more than $17 million for conservation activities in the hotspot, thereby more than doubling the CEPF investment.
“CEPF investments showed that the best way to deal with the great goal—survival of nature of the Caucasus— is cooperation, working under one vision and common approaches,” said Zazanashvili. “If we are able to maintain this way, then we will have solid development.”