Iran’s agricultural sector will benefit from a $6.5 million grant recently approved by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council to support the implementation of a new treaty for the protection of the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest enclosed body of water.
"The five countries participating in this GEF project have made a promising start in creating a regional framework for protecting and restoring the Caspian Sea environment," said CEO and Chairman of GEF, Len Good. "This GEF project will support the countries as they take the next steps needed to protect their shared ecosystem—an endeavor that is critical to the health and livelihoods of people in the region, as well as the survival of globally significant biodiversity."
Each of the five participating countries — Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and Turkmenistan —signed the Tehran Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea in early November. Under this convention, the five countries agreed to take all necessary measures, individually and collectively, to reduce and control pollution and to protect the environment of the sea.
GEF played a key role in the preparation of the convention by providing a grant for a previous project that laid the groundwork for regional cooperation. The UN Environment Program (UNEP) facilitated the negotiation of the convention.
The UN Development Program (UNDP), in cooperation with UNEP, will manage the project, which will be supplemented with $25.8 million in co-financing from governments and other sources. The project will initiate implementation of the countries’ trans-boundary environmental convention and fill remaining gaps in the understanding of how human activities damage the ecology of the Caspian Sea.
Four regional environmental concerns will be addressed: unsustainable use of biological resources; other threats to biodiversity, including invasive species; pollution; and unsustainable coastal area development.
The Caspian Sea, which occupies a deep depression on the boundary between Asia and Europe, contains some 44 percent of all inland waters on the earth. Approximately 40 percent of the species found in the Caspian are not found elsewhere; without intervention, the potential loss of globally significant biodiversity is high.
The region is internationally renowned for its fisheries, and specifically, the delicacy of Caspian caviar. These fisheries provide much-needed protein to the diets of coastal residents; however, the overall fish catch is declining due to pollution, over-fishing, and other factors. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
