Protection and Sustainable Development of Natural Resources and Biodiversity in the Yıldız Mountains

The purpose of this project is to “serve the long term and large scale protection of biodiversity Yildiz Mountains (Istranca forest) on the Turkish side of the region by carrying out inventories and mapping, designing zonation, developing management plans and implementing management within the established UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve”, inventory and planning of the Yildiz Mountains as a BR; forming cooperation between Turkish and Bulgarian institutions; training and awareness raising activities and renovation of a training centre.

Agrin is contributing to the following project activities by providing 1 key expert and short term experts on relevant subjects.

1-) Inventory and planning of the Yildiz Mountains as Biosphere Reserve mobilization;

• Inventory and survey planning and implementation: review of vegetation, flora and fauna; biodiversity surveys design workshop; develop land use/vegetation map; biodiversity surveys training; flora and fauna field surveys, data collection and analysis; water resources and eco-hydrology assessment; develop landscape classification system and map.
• Stakeholder participation in management planning: identification and analysis of stakeholders; strategy and action plan development for stakeholder participation
• Socio-economic surveys and ecosystem services assessment: workshop to identify main ecosystem services provided by Yildiz BR; Socio-economic evaluation of services; workshop to sensitise and review implications of ecosystems services analysis; workshops on local livehood dependencies on natural resources
• Information system development: Needs identification workshop; recruitment and training of GIS officer, website establishment, information system specifications development; database, GIS and Web GIS development, demonstration and training workshops
• BR Management planning and UNESCO/MAB nomination dossier preparation: prepare and publish preliminary management plan; BR Nomination Dossier preparation
• Monitoring: Review available baseline data; monitoring training workshop; development of Monitoring Plan and Guidelines; training in Threat Reduction Analysis (TRA) Tool for Training Workshop.

2-) Environmental training, education and awareness:

• Assessment of environmental training, education and awareness needs; development of training and education manual and materials; pilot training of trainers course, pilot training of scouts courses.

3-) Capacity Building

• Training needs assessment workshop; capacity building strategy/action plan formulation; development of future training framework/programme/financing mechanism; training of trainers, international workshop participation; seminars/visiting speakers; study tours (Bulgaria/Strandja and Europe)

4-) Awareness/communication/information:

• Development of Communication Strategy and Action Plan

5-) Supervision of the training centre renovation works