The UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ms Consuelo Vidal and a team of UNDP programme specialists visited the project site for the Carbon Sequestration in Desertified Rangelands in Hossein Abad village, near Birjand, in Khorassan Jonoobi (south) province on 4 May 2010.  While in Birjand, Ms. Vidal met with several key local figures, including Mr Gholam-Abbas Abdinejad, National Project Director (NPD) and Director General for Desert Affairs in the Forest, Rangeland, Watershed Organisation (FRWO), Dr G. R. Haadarbadi, Head of Jihad Agriculture Organisation of South Khorasan Province, Mr Sharifi, Director General of Natural Resource Management in South Khorasan Province, and Mr A Yari, National Project Manager (NPM).

Ms Vidal expressed her delight for the achievements made in the first phase of the project and UNDP’s enthusiastic intension to continue assisting the project throughout its second phase.  She also noted her contentment regarding the success of the small enterprises in the project site and emphasised the importance of the project training centre, and the Participatory Natural Resource Management Training Centre, for the imparting the knowledge and sharing experience obtained in the first phase of the project to provincial and national stakeholders.  She also pointed to the need for the lessons learnt to be up scaled at the national level. In her visit to the project site, Ms. Vidal also met with members of the local community, particularly with the empowered women and exhibited their local products.During his speech, Mr Abdinejad thanked UNDP for the outstanding achievements with regard to the empowerment of local communities in order to achieve better management of natural resources in pilot villages.  He also referred to the successes in the rehabilitation of degraded rangelands, which surpassed the commitments made under the first phase of the project.  Mr. Abdinejad noted this success was achieved despite 12 consecutive years of severe drought.

The Carbon Sequestration project was launched in 1994 as a joint initiative between the Global Environment Facility, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and UNDP Country Office. It seeks to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly MDG 7 through a participatory approach. The objective of this project is to model a carbon sequestration process in a dry land area through participatory rehabilitation of degraded rangelands and natural resources.  The first phase of the project which was a success closed in December 2009.  Building on this achievement, the implementing partner of the project, the FRWO of the Ministry of Jihad Agriculture, agreed to extend the project into a second phase to be co-funded by the UNDP and the Iranian Government.

Almost 60 percent of Iran’s 1.64 km² land area is covered by dry lands. Land subject to such environmental degradation will have less vegetative cover and experience a subsequent decrease in the level of atmospheric carbon usually captured by plants. Re-plantation of arid and semi-arid rangelands is considered to help control desertification by increasing the vegetative cover of the land and thus rising the level of atmospheric carbon in plant tissues.

From a global standpoint, the overriding objective of this pilot project is to sequester atmospheric carbon in dry land areas by increasing the vegetative cover of the land. The project aims to demonstrate that Desertified rangelands can be cost effectively reclaimed by and for the benefit of the local community. The project also assumes that there is a significant potential to sequestrate carbon in plants and soil for the overall global benefit in the area.

At a national level, the project is in line with the development priorities of the government of Iran in aiming to combat desertification and improve the productivity of the semi arid land areas. Locally, the rehabilitation of the project site (Hossein Abad) in Southern Khorasan aims to help improve the socioeconomic status of local communities, and thus eradicate abject poverty.

The full participation of local communities has strengthened the communities’ sense of ownership over the rehabilitated areas. As a result communities are taking the role of the protectors of the local area’s natural resources which can be seen by their active involvement in maintaining plant nurseries, selecting and replanting patches of land and protecting the replanted area. As of the end of June 2008, the local villagers, through their VDGs, have participated in the production of more than five million seedlings and re-plantation of almost 9000 ha of degraded rangelands, either reseeded or replanted, and put under community-led protection.

The project has promoted alternative businesses by offering vocational training in the area and establishing a microcredit mechanism for VDG members. More than half of the projects’ activities in previous years have been aimed at vocational trainings that help villagers establish income generating initiatives. These newly acquired skills have been utilised through the establishment of alternative businesses, funded by the small loans acquired through the micro-credit fund. This fund, which is financed by the project, is made by contributions received every fortnight at the VDG meetings from the VDG members’ small savings and re-loaned to the group members.

Taking benefit of the ample sunlight available in the area, a number of solar energy facilities including water desalinators and a solar bath have been put up in Hossein Abad. The VDGs have provided villagers with gas-fuelled ovens and a liquefied gas distribution facility has been established and is run by VDGs. As a result the dependence on fuel wood has decreased from 800 kg per household per year to 80 kg in the pilot area. This in turn has resulted in freeing numerous working hours normally spent by young boys and girls in search of firewood.

The project has followed a participatory and well-pursued documentation strategy in order to produce regular reports, publications and documentary films.

For more information about the Project Document, please visit:

http://undp.org.ir/DocCenter/projectdocs/Carbon%20sequestration%20PD.pdf