FOREST AND MOUNTAIN PROTECTED AREAS PROJECT

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The objective of the Forests and Mountain Protected Areas Project for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is to strengthen the institutional and technical capacity for sustainable Protected Areas (PAs) and natural resource management, and expand the BiH network of forest and mountain PAs. There are three components to the project. The first component is the protected area development. This component will support PA management plans, operations, assessments, and facilities development in existing and new PAs. There are two subcomponents to the project. The first subcomponent is the PA management planning. The project will finance development and implementation of new PA plans for the two existing National Parks (NPs) Sutjeska and Kozara, for the existing Janj and Lom forest reserves and for the new National Parks (NPs) in Una River and Igman-Bjelasnica-Treskavica-Visocica mountain complex (IBTV). The second subcomponent is the ecological and PA management assessment. The project will establish a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system for both the PAs and the project. This will include support for the ecological assessments to be used as inputs to the PA management planning and decision-making as well as for subsequent monitoring of biodiversity status including tracking of key habitats and species. The second component is the capacity and support for biodiversity conservation. This component will focus on strengthening the institutions responsible for planning, establishment, and management of PAs. Finally, the third component is the local initiatives in biodiversity conservation. The project will support biodiversity conservation efforts by local stakeholders which promote improved natural resource management and generate economic benefits to local communities involved in protected areas management. To be eligible, subprojects must be able to demonstrate that they will mitigate the significant threats to global biodiversity or contribute to monitoring of such biodiversity, and include arrangements to assess their impacts.