Promotion of Integrated Biodiversity Conservation and Land Degradation Neutrality in Highly Degraded Landscapes of Iraq

UNEP West Asia is organizing the inception workshop of the GEF-7 Project “Promotion of Integrated Biodiversity Conservation and Land Degradation Neutrality in Highly Degraded Landscapes of Iraq” that will be executed with the Ministry of Environment - Republic of Iraq.

The identified project site is the Middle Euphrates landscape, which lies in the Mesopotamian Plain. The site is located across central and southern Iraq with a size of around 2 million ha.

The project aims to strengthen governmental and non-governmental capacities to achieve biodiversity conservation and land degradation neutrality in the Middle Euphrates landscape through integrated landscape management.

The project has 4 main components: 

1. Implementation of measures to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss and promote land rehabilitation to improve delivery of ecosystem services to serve well-being and health of local communities.

2. Implementation of measures to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss and promote land rehabilitation to improve delivery of ecosystem services to serve well-being and health of local communities.

3. Implementation of nature-based solutions (NbS) and sustainable land management (SLM) techniques to improve flow of agro-ecosystem services in the Middle Euphrates Landscapes and contribute to land degradation neutrality (LDN).

4. Capacity building and knowledge management