BSAPP Executive Summary

Palestine’s ancient civilisations have always prospered on the basis of its unique geographic position linking the three continents of the Old World: Africa, Asia and Europe. This position has placed Palestine’s biomes among the richest biological diversity in the world and has given it a position of strength in trade in the region. Throughout time, the people of the Holy Lands in Palestine have been known for their sophisticated systems of sustainable resource husbanding in farming, rangeland management and fishing. The great civilisations that rose here in the heart of the fertile crescent owed much of their prosperity to their shrewd stewardship of natural resources. Today, this biological diversity, which includes many unique species of wild and domesticated animals and plants and their genetic variety and habitats, is severely threatened. The recent history of the Occupied Territories has forced its once flourishing local communities of Bedouins, fishing folks and farmers to put more pressure on an already tight and shrinking resource base in pursuit of their increasingly unsustainable livelihood. Crowded out of the best lands and natural resources in the whole region, they have pushed many of the native species of plants and animals of local and global importance towards extinction.

The goal of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan for Palestine (BSAPP) is to reverse this process through mobilising the resourcefulness of the Palestinian people, and judiciously guiding and applying international technical and financial support for this purpose. It aims at nothing less than the restoration and rehabilitation of Palestine’s diversity of species, genetic resources and the ecosystems in which they can flourish. Far from considering this task a luxury, Palestine, in approving the BSAPP, is according it an order of priority on the same level as its continuing struggle for national territorial integrity. As custodians of this global heritage, Palestinians are coming to realise that– until both present and future generations are assured of the environmental safety of their biological diversity– their own food and environmental security is threatened. The activities presented under the five objectives that follow are intended to elaborate ways for the preservation and sustainable use of these irreplaceable resources.

The Strategy is presented in five objectives, each with its action agenda given at three priority levels divided into immediate, medium- and long-term. The objectives reflect five principles that guide the formulation of the BSAPP. Highlights of selected actions for each objective are presented below.

 

Table 1: BSAPP’s Objectives

BSAPP Objective

Selected Agenda Actions

Objective 1

Conservation of Palestine’s Biodiversity
  • In situ conservation areas are set aside to conserve endemic, threatened and endangered biodiversity of global significance.
  • Protect and rehabilitate degraded habitats and ecosystems of especial importance for rangeland and forest biological diversity
  • Develop national policies, regulatory measures, and other legal frameworks addressing biodiversity conservation and sustainable use
  • Identify and legally establish a representative system of protected areas/nature reserves (including wetland protected areas) addressing globally significant biodiversity, and facilitating information exchange.

Objective 2

Sustainable use of Palestine’s biodiversity

Sustainable:

  • Tourism and ecotourism programs.
  • Biodiversity friendly agriculture
  • Supervised/Controlled forms of hunting and plant collections
  • Proper Management of grazing and controlled access to rangelands
  • Forest managand production
  • Biodiversity friendly pastoral production
  • Management of fisheries, land and water resources, and integrated pest management

Objective 3

Enhancement of local knowledge, skills and improvement of people’s attitudes and practices for the conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity
  • Survey, understand and strengthen traditional resource management institutions. Information and training on indigenous threatened species and their uses

Awareness campaigns:

  • Formal and informa education programs
  • Biodiversity awareness campaigns,
  • Social communication activities
  • Artists, elders, religious leaders and teachers / values of biodiversity into the popular culture.
  • School clubs for the protection of nature.

Objective 4

Equitable sharing of biodiversity benefits within Palestine
  • Participatory action research on benefits and costs of conservation of biodiversity
  • Strengthen local capacity for maintaining and benefiting from crop and various wildlife diversity.
  • Support traditional systems of resource management to obtain larger market share for domesticated products harvested sustainably.
  • Equitable licensing/use arrangements for marine fishing, grazing and other uses of common biodiversity resources, balancing commercial and subsistence use.
  • National Trust Fund for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use established to benefit local Palestinian communities

Objective 5

Development of Palestinian institutional and human resource capacity in the field of biodiversity
  • Training courses in natural resource management, focussing on plants and wildlife of major importance in Palestine and on participatory action research and collaborative management methods (protected areas management; field-based, problem-based learning).
  • Systems of collaborative management of natural resources (stakeholders negotiate their own benefits).
  • Revise university curricula and establish courses and workshops to train local specialists, in the conservation and management of biodiversity. include indigenous knowledge and practices
  • Develop training programs in eco-tourism.

(The full agendas for action and other details are in Part I of the BSAPP)

 

Based on the objectives and action plans, a list of priority initiatives/ project profiles were put together by the Technical Working Group. A list of these projects follows. Part II has summary description of the project objectives, activities, outputs and indicative budgets.

Table 2: Priority Initiatives (Projects) for BSAPP

Name of Project

1- Development and Management of a Palestinian Protected Areas System

2- Development of Management Plans/Structures in Designated Protected Areas Based on Biodiversity Surveys and Inventories

3- Protecting and Using Traditional Indigenous Knowledge and Property Rights for Biological Diversity

4- Implementation of Biosafety Measures on Biotechnology in Palestine

5- Habitat Restoration (including rangelands, forests, wetlands, sacred groves and integrated agro-ecosystems)

6- Collaborative Management of Biodiversity

7- Combating Desertification and Coping with the Adverse Effects of Climate Change

8- Elaborating and Enforcing a National Legislation/Legal Frameworks on Biodiversity

9- Establishing a Biodiversity Information and Social Education Centre

10- Promotion of Eco-tourism/Economical Aspects of Biodiversity

11- Coastal Zone Management in Gaza and the Dead Sea

12- Establishment of a Gene Bank in Palestine