In the week of 26 February, CNF’s Regional Conservation Director travelled from Tbilisi to Yerevan to undertake a number of important meetings for CNF connected with issues of biodiversity in Armenia.
In the summer of 2022, with support from the Caucasus Nature Fund (CNF), the Ministry of Environment of Armenia took the lead on launching the process for developing a comprehensive list of biodiversity indicators for Armenia for 2023-2033 (BIA) to assist the government of Armenia in meeting monitoring and reporting obligations stemming from obligations under multilateral environmental agreements. The aims of this initiative were to understand the status and trends of flora and fauna species in the Armenian Protected Areas, including how they are impacted by climate change and other threats. The expectation is that the data collected will help inform actions and decisions at the level of Protected Areas, as well as national and international policy levels.
The process of working on the BIA involved more than 40 experts from all relevant institutions in Armenia. The actors included local and international organizations, NGOs, universities, the A. Takhtajyan Institute of Botany and the Scientific Center of Zoology and Hydroecology of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, as well as the relevant SNCOs. A comprehensive BIA document was developed with over 200 indicators species to be monitored in the period from 2023 to2033 on the territories of the Protected Areas supported by CNF (Khosrov Forest State Reserve, Dilijan National Park, Arpi Lake National Park, Zangezur Biosphere Complex, Arpa Protected Landscape) and beyond.
Since 2023, CNF has been supporting the implementation of field-based monitoring of selected species together with partner organizations such as “Hydrometeorology and Monitoring Center” SNCO and the Institute of Botany on selected species of flora and fauna.
On February 27-28 2024, CNF’s Regional Conservation Director, Tamar Pataridze, together with our Program Manager, Arman Avagyan, had the opportunity to meet and discuss biodiversity monitoring related issues in Armenia in general as well as the status of monitoring of selected species. The representative from the biodiversity monitoring group of the “Hydrometeorology and Monitoring Center”, SNCO, Astghik Tsaturyan, demonstrated the results of data collection and recordings by ArcGIS Survey123 software used during the field-based monitoring. With the Director of the Institute of Botany, Arsen Gasparyan, CNF’s representatives discussed the status of plant monitoring, challenges during data collection and analysis, as well as the possibility of introducing and applying SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool) technology in Armenia for data collection and analysis in the future.
CNF’s representatives attended a working meeting on the Emerald Network in Armenia organized by the Institute of Botany under the auspices of EU4Environment, where they had the opportunity to hear about the progress and challenges in regards to creation of Emerald Network in the country and to meet experts from different research, governmental, non-governmental and donor organizations actively involved in the conservation sector of Armenia.
The meeting was also held with the Director of WWF Armenia, Karen Manvelyan who kindly provided detailed information about the ongoing and planned activities by WWF Armenia related to biodiversity monitoring, shared their experience of working with the community conservation areas and protected areas management in general. The importance of regular coordination between these two organizations were highlighted by both parties.
