Cross‐sectoral and participatory approaches to combating desertification: The Iranian experience

Abstract

Anti‐desertification planning in Iran operates at the national level through the Five Year Development Plans, the National Plan to Combat Desertification — a long‐running scheme for which the Forest, Rangeland and Watershed Management Organisation (FRWO) is responsible — and the recently developed National Action Programme to Combat Desertification (the NAP). The Iranian NAP was formulated following the country's ratification of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and drew heavily on the experience, expertise and collaboration of personnel in FRWO. Development and implementation of the NAP has had major policy impacts in Iran in the two main areas of generating cross‐sectoral cooperation between government instruments at the national planning level and by community participation in local projects to combat desertification. Documenting the evolution of cross‐sectoral and participatory approaches to desertification in Iran shows that the NAP provided impetus towards a transformation of previous procedures, a policy impact that is continuing to generate change.

Multi-Stakeholder and Multi-Level Interventions to Tackle Climate Change and Land Degradation: The Case of Iran

“…There are some lessons learned that are narrated by this paper. The government's financial investment and relevant projects have been proven to help rural communities to become empowered and self-reliant, such as workshops on renewable energy [36], or the protection of natural resources for local communities, managed by National Action Program to Combat Desertification. The employment of a diverse range of on-the-ground activities and plans with multi-stakeholders has been very effective.…”

“…To tackle desertification, the Ministry of Agriculture created a "Soil and Water Conservation Committee" in the 1950s and other structures included in the Forest Rangeland and Watershed Management, to stabilize sand dunes [36]. In the 1970s, the Department of Environment (DoE) was created to manage environmental conservation projects in Iran [37].…”

“…Some anti-desertification projects have stressed failures on account of the weak participation of local communities [17,25,36]. In addition, farmers and local stakeholders are sometimes reluctant to participate in projects or collective organization that could hamper their access to local resources [49].…”

Combating desertification in Iran over the last 50 years: An overview of changing approaches

“…bee-keeping), expansion of orchards (e.g. walnut and olive orchards), the recharging of aquifers, and the planting of trees (Hosseini et al, 2007;Amiraslani and Dragovich, 2010).…”

Estimation of the methane generation rate constant using a large-scale respirometer at a landfill site

“…For instance, in Qazvin, prevailing wind is a south-eastern wind called Raz or Shareh [42,43]. This wind comes from desert areas of central Iran and is very warm and dry; hence, it is reasonable that a reduction of the wind speed (WS) due to desertification approaches [44] leads to decreasing impacts of the mentioned climate and consequently reducing the ET o . Therefore, the WS may be introduced as the most influencing factor on variations of the ET o in Qazvin.…”