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Conservation of globally important biodiversity in the grasslands of the Ponor Mountains through support for the traditional local economy (April - December 2005)
Client: Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds funded by UNDP
The project involved the development of a medium sized GEF project proposal. The goal is long-term conservation of the globally important biodiversity of the Ponor Mountains, with a focus on its grasslands as a pastoral ecosystem, by addressing the root-causes of its abandonment and degradation.
Our responsibilities included:
The formation
and supervision of teams of biodiversity, socio-economic and dairy and
husbandry experts;
The collection
and analysis of biodiversity and socio-economic baseline data for the
Ponor mountain region;
Detailed assessments
of the land tenure situation in the project area through the acquisition
of GIS files for the Ponor region from MAF, and the development of associated
maps,
The assessment
of eco-tourism development potential for the area;
Analysis of
the current status of dairy and husbandry markets and market barriers;
Identification
of potential key project partners among the local stakeholders;
Data collection
and analysis of project replication potential in two other future Natura
2000 areas sites - Kamenski Rid, near Sliven and Bessaparski Hills, near
Pazardjik;
The development
of monitoring systems to measure the effectiveness of project outcomes
towards reaching the biodiversity conservation objectives of the Ponor
Natura 2000 site;
A feasibility
study on the establishment of a municipal business/information centre;
A survey of
the existing in-country certification schemes for food and tourist products
for the benefit of local economic development,
The development
of a Public Awareness Strategy.
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