Donor: Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Partner: Istituto Oikos Onlus
Objectives:
• Restoring agricultural terraces and contributing to the application of sustainable agricultural practices.
• Contributing to alleviating pressures on wild plants and working to enhance their reproduction through nurseries.
• Building the capacities of farmers in agriculture and production in order to improve livelihoods.
• Supporting the participatory action and decision of local authorities and stakeholders with the aim of including practices that contribute in preserving biodiversity within the land use schemes in the biosphere of the two reserves.
The activities:
• Courses and training sessions on the traditional practices of agricultural lands, such as the use of pesticides, extension in water consumption, and others.
• Restoration of agricultural lands with different characteristics.
• Marketing the use of local varieties in agriculture by distributing a number of seedlings and local trees.
• Training the staff of the "Jabal Moussa Reserve" on biodiversity monitoring.
• Monitoring biodiversity in restored areas.
• Providing training to the teams of the two reserves on the management of nurseries.
• Marketing related products and cultivated items such as thyme and others.
• Conclusion of cooperation agreements between producers and consumers.
In numbers:
• The involvement of 120 farmers and about 30 unemployed persons.
• Restoration of 10 hectares in the Shouf Biosphere Reserve and 5 hectares in the "Jabal Moussa Biosphere Reserve" of abandoned agricultural lands.
• Distributing more than 11000 various seedlings/plants.
• Training 10 farmers.
• Monitoring biodiversity in 9 different sites.
• Developing a farmer market.
• Organizing production marketing activities.
Duration: 13 months: May 2021 - June 2022