Tehran, April 9, 2008 - More than 30,000 visitors visited Iran’s first Wetlands Festival on the shores of Lake Parishan in Fars Province over two days on 27-28 March 2008. The 18 villages situated around the lake have for months worked closely together in preparing this event in close collaboration with the local government and the village councils of the area. The local people took the initiative to exhibit their traditional values taken shape over the millennia of coexistence with the wetland. Being the first event of its kind, the Festival went beyond all expectations both in terms of local participation as well as the high turnout by outside visitors.

“This is the most important thing that has happened to the area and the lake” Hamdollah Rezai from the village Parishan says as he talks about the significant influence the preparations for this festival has had on environmental awareness in the area. He and other participants who have been contributing to the preparations expected the festival to be visited by a maximum of 4000 - 5000 people, something that would be well above half of the villages’ total population of 6000 - 7000. When over 15,000 turned up each of the two days from the local area as well as from large cities such as Shiraz and Tehran all expected numbers were shadowed.

The green plains around the village Arab Famour were chosen by a preparation panel composed of six representatives from every village to be the most suitable site for the festival. Although situated 40 kilometers from the nearest city Kazeroun, the remoteness of the site did not stop visitors spending their New Year’s holiday in spring-green Fars Province from coming to experience traditional dance, games and music, local handicrafts, medical herbs and food dishes, horseback riding and exhibitions of paintings and photographs. The Festival was opened with the presence of Kazeroun’s Governor, Friday Prayer Leader, Mayor and several other local authorities, the Head and Deputy of Fars Department of Environment, the Heads of the Islamic Councils of all the 18 villages, in addition to representatives from UNDP, the Project Office, local NGOs and the local communitie

Children in traditional dance	Exhibition of local handicrafts	Exhibition of local medical herbs and food	Activities for children

The 18 villages have since December last year been preparing the festival with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the Department of Environment through the joint project “Conservation of Iranian Wetlands”, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Government of the Netherlands. Responsibilities for the preparation and implementation of the exhibit including site arrangement, sanitation, garbage management and accommodation, had been distributed among 13 working groups, each having one chairperson.

A series of workshops and meetings were held with the working group leaders with the purpose of bringing the villages together and integrating local communities in conserving the lake Parishan and its adjacent wetlands. In addition to these workshops, the three male and three female representatives from each village met once a week in gatherings whose venue rotates among the villages to discuss environmental problems and to participate in educational sessions on nature resource management and alternative livelihood options.

Mohammad Nasri from Nasir Abad village is a member of the NGO Pasdaran-e Sabz-e Tabi’at (The Green Guards of Nature) that has been working closely with the “Conservation of Iranian Wetlands” Project Office. He says: “This festival has really activated people in the villages and considerably raised environmental awareness”. Ali Asghar Boluee from Arab Famour fully agrees with Nasiri and adds: “There has been a significant change in attitude towards bird hunting and fishing, especially after we started working with this festival through village meetings and workshops”. Boluee looks back at the time before the NGO was established: “I used to do a lot of hunting and fishing myself. I took out approximately 2-3 tons of fish from the lake every year, and this at the worst times of year when the fish was most vulnerable. I neither fish nor hunt anymore, or at least I chose the right seasons when it has minimum impact.”

Hamdulla Rezai supports Boluee by saying: “The locals are hunting and fishing much less now than before. Through the NGO we are particularly trying to prevent people from fishing during the breeding season in order to reduce harm to the environment.” Nasri adds to Rezai’s comment: “The reason why there is less hunting and fishing is both because of the education and the awareness raising that has been given by the NGOs throughout the last year.”

Herders from the village Arab Famour	Important bird habitat at Parishan lake	Outskirts of a Parishan wetland	Sunset over a Parishan wetland

Ali Nazaridoust, National Project Manager for the Conservation of Iranian Wetlands project, is satisfied with the event and emphasizes: “A very positive experience in the preparations for this festival has been the extensive participation from the local communities. This is an important development and very promising for the festival’s continuity in coming years. It strengthens our hope that at the end of the project the villages will be able to continue arranging such festivals on their own.”

”Being the first time such a Wetland Festival is arranged in Iran, the outcome was above all our expectations” says Saeid Ferdowsi, Programme Analyst in UNDP’s Environment Unit. “The local participation looks very promising and the event seems to have created a platform for the local communities to learn from each other, to act collectively and to contribute to the management of their environmental assets in a concerted way. We should try to replicate the event in similar areas and help organize next year’s festival even better."