UN FAO launches new project ? Monitoring Caspian: sea of bio-diversity or oil?

Kazakhstan, Astana. April 6. KAZINFORM The international organizations consortium under UNOPS, UN Development Program and Global Economic Fund (GEF) will implement a new project on the "Caspian Sea: restoring fish reserves", UN Development Program in Kazakhstan Press-service Coordinator Daniyar Serikov told Trend News, Kazinform refers to Trend News.

"Moreover, it is planned to form a permanent regional nature conservation organization - "CaspEco"," Serikov said. He said this project has been in centre of attentions for long time due to developing needs of all 5 Caspian states, including Kazakhstan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Russia to improve protection of reservoir whose status has not been yet specified. The consortium intends to strengthen international mechanisms to protect bio-diversity of the sea in line with the Tehran convention to protect the Caspian sea environment. "Generally, the project will aim to apply principles of stable use and preservation of the Caspian Sea bioresources through constructing general conservation architecture of reservoir. The unified monitoring system will be a spine for a system of notification of ecological threats," Serikov said. According to the UN Development Program coordinator, a contemporary state of the Caspian Sea environment and its ecological risks will be assessed during realizing the program. The project group will design patterns of the eco-system under which perceptibility map of the shore and atlas of the sea's flora and fauna will be devised. Moreover, the UN Development program experts said they will focus on managing with ballast water and developing interactions of the Caspian states on supervising over alien species' moving into the sea." It is planned that the project will also focus on holding enlightenment events for Kazakh and international specialists on the Caspian Sea. Another target initiative group will be the Caspian Water Bioresources Commission which the project will assist in developing practical administrations on bioresource management in line with the eco-system approach. The Caspian region's people also will receive an opportunity to partake in the project through submitting applications to get a grant to improve the shore's social infrastructure. This will enable to cut local people's economic dependence on the sea's bioresources. The project jointly with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will assess activity of piscicultural plants oriented to the Caspian region's fish resources. This will enable to develop recommendations to increase their efficiency in restoring natural spawning area and improve access to facilities for fish's independent pass. The project will focus on a problem to preserve population of the Caspian seals which are under extinction according to many ecologists. It is expected that the Specially Protected Natural Territories (SPNT) will created for them in the Caspian Sea which will enable to stop their extinction. The project will contribute to forming such SPNT through developing feasibility study for future protected zone. "The project covers three years and its budget will make up $1,570,000. The project will be a general project and cover all Caspian states. The project will be coordinated from a regional management and coordination bureau in Astana," Serikov said. The frame convention on protection of the Caspian Sea environment which is known as the Tehran convention came to power on Aug. 12 in 2006. The Tehran convention aims to protect the Caspian Sea environment from all types of pollution, including protection, preservation, restoration, stable and rational use of their biological resources. Moreover, it comprises a legal base for giving legal force to ecological norms at a regional level to struggle against critical problems, such as reducing some sea biological resources, pollution from ground sources, colonizer species and worsening rare and endangered species' habitation area. See full version of the article at Trendaz.com