The National Project Manager:

Changing the Approach from Conserving the Wetland Water body to Integrated Basin Management

“The most important achievement of this project was the change of approach from conserving the wetland water body to integrated watershed management,” the National Project Manager (NPM) of Conservation of Iranian Wetland Project (CIWP) said.

Mehri Asnaashari, on the eve of 2 February, World Wetlands Day, in an interview with the PR department of the Department of Environment (DoE) mentioned that the issue of wetlands goes beyond the geographical borders. She described the issue of wetlands as a global concern, adding: "According to the Global Wetland Outlook (2021), published by the Ramsar Convention, we have lost 35% of the world's wetlands since 1970 and these wetlands have been destroyed. This rate is three times higher than the rate of deforestation.” “The same report acknowledged that the biggest threat that wetlands are currently facing is land-use changes. The main change of uses is related to the agriculture sector, which is the largest consumer of water in basins.” The National Project Manager of CIWP said. Asnaashari also talked about the Conservation of Iranian Wetland Project and mentioned: “This project started in 2005 and through its phases, it has received various international support in addition to government support for the conservation of wetlands and the promotion of a new approach called Ecosystem Approach to managing the Iranian wetlands.” "In the first phase, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) was the main sponsor of the project, and this cooperation was established through the UNDP (United Nations Development Program). In this phase, we succeeded in implementing the ecological approach in three wetlands of Shadegan, Urmia, and Parishan as the pilots, using the international assistance and in-kind support of the Iranian government." The NPM added.

Asnaashari added: “In the Wetlands Integrated Management Plans, each strategic goal, a set of priority actions are defined. The responsibility of their implementation is not only with the DoE because this organization is a regulatory body and the executive bodies are responsible for implementing most of those measures, including the provision and allocation of wetlands water right (Ministry of Energy), increasing water productivity at the farm level (Ministry of Jihad Agriculture) and issues related to the livelihood of local communities and tourism (Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts).” She also added: “In the 2000s, Lake Urmia faced a critical situation and due to the experience of 7-8 years of presence of an international project such as the CIWP in the Department of Environment, negotiations were held with the Japanese government and a joint work with the Iranian government started in the basin of Lake Urmia with the aim of restoring this lake.”

She said that this cooperation was formed in 2014 and has continued until now, added: “The Japanese government contributed $ 1 million annually, which has been paid for seven consecutive years. Based on the positive achievements and good experiences in the Urmia Lake basin, another three-year joint project with the Japanese Government was defined, the implementation of which was again entrusted to the CIWP in the Department of Environment.” "In this three-year document, in addition to seeking to stabilize the experiences of the past 7 years in the Urmia Lake basin, we added Bakhtegan and Shadegan wetlands to our pilots to replicate the experiences of the Urmia Lake project in those two wetlands.” She added.

She described the sustainable management of water and soil in Lake Urmia Basin as one of the strategic goals of this project and said: “Considering that in the catchment area of Lake Urmia, the agricultural sector had the highest water consumption, we focused on this sector. Therefore, in cooperation with the Agriculture-Jihad Organization and the Provincial Directorates of Departments of Environment in East and West Azerbaijan, we practiced and implemented sustainable agricultural techniques with local communities in 183 villages out of a total of 250 villages in ecological zone of LU. According to the results of our monitoring team, there was an average of 27.1% reduction in water consumption at the farm level." "We also promoted alternative livelihoods by focusing on rural women to reduce the dependence of households' livelihoods on the water resources, and this was practiced in 34 pilot villages involving 800 rural women." she said.

“The main achievement of this project in recent years is the change of view and approach in the field of wetland protection." said the CIWP National Project Manager and added: "Fortunately, from the view that only the water area of the wetland should be preserved, we moved towards an integrated management approach at the basin level, because everything that happens upstream of the basin directly affects on the entire basin, including the wetland." In the end, Asnaashari emphasized: “Of course, the full realization of this approach is time-consuming and we cannot expect severe change among involved sectors in the short term, but good signs of this change could be observed.”