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The
Ecoregional Conservation Plan - Summary
Unfortunately
the Caucasus’ rich and diverse global bio-diversity
treasure is seriously threatened. Critical
problems include un-sustainable development,
destruction of forests for fuel and poaching.
In response to these threats, a group of
more than 100 regional and international
scientists and policy makers have been collaborating
since 2000 to produce a single Ecoregional
conservation plan (the ECP). Published in
2006, the ECP proposes the integration of
the existing collection of individual protected
areas in the region into an expanded trans-boundary
network of PAs and connecting corridors.
In the three core countries, various steps
to-wards that goal have already been taken,
and important forthcoming measures include
the creation of at least five new major
protected areas over the next four to five
years.
The ECP’s trans-national approach is essential
given the number and size of the countries
and territories that form the Ecoregion.
Many of the areas to be protected lie on
borders, and animals require the ecoregional—and
not the political—space for their migration,
breeding and feeding. The governments in
the region have agreed in principle to back
this effort. This cooperation has particular
significance in a region with lingering
territorial conflicts.
The ECP begins with a biological and a socio-economic
assessment of the Ecoregion. Its assessment
of the major threats to biodiversity and
root causes poverty, lack of public awareness,
lack of trans-boundary cooperation, and
others helped determine the strategic
areas of intervention.
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The
ECP identifies four priority biomes that
contain the bulk of biodiversity with the
most pressing threats as the bio-geographical
focus of its conservation efforts. Twenty-six
focal species are targeted where habitat
protection alone is not enough to guarantee
survival of the species.
But even by limiting conservation strategies
to the priority biomes and focal species,
the enormous area to be conserved and the
limited funds of the regional and international
conservation community required a narrowing
of the focus to a set of Priority Conservation
Areas (PCAs), which were selected based
on the need to protect the most important
areas for biodiversity while appropriately
representing the four priority biomes and
the 26 focal species.
Under the ECP, the Protected Areas are integrated
into the overall land-use plans which include
sustainable use and community-based management
of natural resources outside the PA borders.
In this way, it is planned that the ECP
and PAs will involve and receive the support
of local rural communities. This will be
as crucial to their success as the support
of the governments.
The remaining sub-sections under this tab
are digests of or excerpts from Part 2 of
the ECP, which describes the priority biomes,
focal species and species of special concern,
and the ECP vision. The full text of the
ECP can be found here
Continue to the next page and learn about
the Priority Biomes
under the ECP
Note:Descriptions apply to the Ecoregion,
and thus include the areas of Russia, Turkey
and Iran that form part of the Ecoregion.
All of the biomes and almost all of the
bio-diversity, however, are strongly represented
in the three core countries. |
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