Project Objective & Brief Description: |
The Project of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Ministry of Forestry of Belarus “Renaturalization and Sustainable Management of Peatlands in Belarus to Combat Land Degradation, Ensure Conservation of Globally Valuable Biodiversity and Mitigate Climate Change” aims to restore wetland ecosystem of 17 drained and degraded peatlands with a total area of over 40 000 ha, to reduce the incidence of peatlands fires, to create conditions for flora and fauna restoration. The project plans to develop a strategy for restoration and sustainable management of degraded peatlands, set up an integrated monitoring system for renaturalized peatlands, which will enable sound decision making on peatland utilization in the future.
Project implementation will contribute to meeting Belarus' international commitments under three environmental conventions – on biodiversity, on climate change and on combating desertification and land degradation. Furthermore, restoration of the project sites will provide hands-on data to assess peatlands contribution to climate change mitigation, as well as analyze opportunities for using emission reductions under the Kyoto Protocol that Belarus became a party to in 2005. |
