Inspired by the success in rehabilitating the Iraqi marshlands that some believe were the site of the Biblical Garden of Eden, UN-backed pilot projects are now targeting a "lost" lake in Mali, a Kenyan forest that is a vital source for key rivers and lakes, and land restoration in Haiti.
The projects are among several such large-scale and nationally significant rehabilitation initiatives that the UN Environment Program (UNEP) wants to launch in five countries during the run-up to the next meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner told the Fifth World Conservation Congress in Barcelona on Monday that the international community needs to "invest and re-invest in the 'soft' infrastructure too, from forests and fisheries to wetlands and soils, if we are to ensure water and food supplies in a world with climate change and in a world with 9 billion mouths to feed in just four decades."
He spotlighted Lake Faguibine, a spearhead-shaped body of water linked with seasonal flooding of the Niger, Africa's third largest river. At its maximum, the lake can cover close to 600 square km but has been almost totally dry since the 1970s.
Declining rainfall, increased evaporation and land-use changes are some of the factors behind the loss, according to a UNEP assessment.
The rehabilitation, expected to cost more than 12 million U.S. dollars, seeks to manage the land and hydrological cycle, possibly including clearance of some 2 million cubic meters of sand blocking feeder channels, less intensive land use and more sensitive management of discharges from Niger dams. Several donor countries have expressed interest in taking the work forward in cooperation with Mali, the UNEP and other partners.
The UNEP will draw on the skills and expertise gleaned from a four-year program, funded by Japan, to assist Iraq restore the Marshlands of Mesopotamia, considered by some to be the location of the Biblical Garden of Eden, after they were massively damaged by a vast drainage operation carried out by the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.
The project, cost 14 million U.S. dollars, has restored clean drinking water for well over 20,000 Marsh Arabs as well as boosting habitats for a wide range of species. This has prompted the Iraqi government to seek listing of the marshlands as a World Heritage Site with support from UNEP and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Lessons from other countries, not just Iraq, can also be applied. A new management plan for the Itezhi-tezhi dam in Zambia has helped to restore natural seasonal flooding of the Kafue flats, while wetlands expansion around Diawling National Park in Mauritania is helping to control flooding and improve livelihoods, the UNEP said.
In Kenya, the Mau, the country's largest closed-canopy forest, generates goods and services worth more than 320 million dollars annually for the tea, tourism and hydropower sectors as well as feeding rivers and lakes in Kenya and Lake Victoria, which is shared with Uganda and Tanzania. But over recent years it has been impaired by poorly planned settlements and illegal logging.
Over 100,000 hectares, nearly a quarter of the total, has been destroyed in the past decade, putting at risk livelihoods, businesses and existing and planned hydropower schemes. A UNEP-backed government task force is currently assessing needed steps, and restoration, including re-establishing forest plantations, promoting natural regeneration and forest enrichment planting, is expected to start early in 2009.
A further project proposal is being drawn up and staff being hired to restore soils, wetlands, forests and other key ecosystem on the hurricane-vulnerable island of Haiti where environmental degradation has been linked to social unrest, the UNEP said.
Source:Xinhua
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