Land and Water Management Strategies for a Sustainable Environment the Gef Experience

摘要

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) provides support to activities concerning Land Degradation as they relate to the four focal areas of Biodiversity, Climate Change, International Waters and Ozone, in collaboration with the Implementing Agencies and the Conventions in particular with the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. The purpose of this report is to describe the development of the strategy of the GEF in addressing issues related to Land Degradation and Water Management, from the definition of the "Land Degradation Interlinkages"with the GEF focal areas, to the recent initiative of "Integrated Land and Water Management". The Scientific and Technical Advisory panel (STAP) of GEF, convened in 1999 an Expert Group Workshop on "Land Degradation Interlinkages" to explore possible interventions to address Land Degradation as it relates to GEF focal areas. Follow-up of the Workshop were the need for targeted research and the identifications of opportunities and strategies for achieving global benefits. Among these, the following issues were recognised to be useful to address GEF projects related to Land degradation: multi-benefit approach, people centred approach, integrated watershed management, sustainable agricultural practices, vegetation and forest management, energy related strategies. The policy direction within the GEF Secretariat on Land Degradation evolved towards the lines of accruing global environment benefits by protecting ecosystems and reversing land degradation trend by regional interventions by means of introducing a watershed approach. The Action Plan "Land and Water Initiative for Africa" started for enhancing support to Land Degradation, in the aim of facilitating an ecosystem approach, which unable the natural resources to be conserved or restored at a certain level of sustainability (Integrated ecosystem management Oerational Programs OP#12). The approval of the new approach of "Integrated Land and Water management", emphasised the fundamental issue of the social dimension and the issue of selecting criteria to assess the success of (and/or the lessons learned from) the community based case studies on integrated land and water management, in order to disseminate the good practices, including traditional systems.