PROJECTS

It was attended by some fifty participants involved in different aspects of the project’s implementation in Albania: the ministries for agriculture and the environment, Albania’s Mountain Area Development Agency (MADA), NGOs involved in developing local products, environmental NGOs and economic operators in the sectors concerned (extensive livestock, nuts, pomegranates, herbs and aromatic plants).
This cooperation programme is for a regional project involving Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia. The 4-year project aims to protect biodiversity in the mountain areas along the borders of the four countries while also organising sustainable rural development in these regions where poverty and immigration are issues of particular concern. France and Albania are closely associated in the project. Albania’s Mountain Area Development Agency (MADA) is the project owner and co-principal with the International Centre for Higher Agronomic Studies in the Mediterranean (CIHEAM) and the Mediterranean Institute of Agronomy (IAM), both of which have been partnering Albania in the field of agriculture for some fifteen years.   The project is co-financed by MADA (2.25 million Euros) and a 1.2 million euro grant from the French Global Environment Facility (FGEF).
The conference presented current thinking on the development of local production systems and biodiversity preservation in Albania, as well as field experiences involving different forms of multilateral and bilateral cooperation, with France, Italy and Germany in particular. It is clear that quality labelling and especially the introduction of appellations of origin, which is one of the project’s objectives, is a prerequisite to build up the collective action that is essential to the project’s success. Other prerequisites include the involvement of local communities and operators in the different sectors in order to remove existing barriers between them, an integrated approach to sustainable development and a long-term view to be achieved through awareness-raising activities among young people and their families.

The project will need to tackle a range of different challenges: reconciling environmental protection with approaches to generate value from biodiversity; strengthening scientific data on pastures and medicinal plants; organising the agriculture sector in mountain areas (highly fragmented family subsistence farming, frequent abandon of farms, informal agricultural land management); advisory support for the development and introduction of legislative and regulatory frameworks for quality labelling;  and finally, developing links between other ongoing or forthcoming projects addressing similar topic areas in Albania and the Balkans.

This conference was part of a field mission organised from 26 to 30 March 2012 by Albania’s Mountain Area Development Agency (MADA), which is responsible for the project’s implementation. The French participants attending the conference were Emmanuelle Swynghedauw (MAEE/DGM/BPM/NAT) and Anne Gautier (MAAPRAT/DGPAT), Christophe Du Castel (FGEF), François Lerin (co-responsible for project coordination) and Claire Bernard (Ph.D. student assigned to the project), both representing the CIHEAM (Mediterranean Institute of Agronomy at Montpellier - IAMM), and two French experts speaking at the project launch conference, Jean-Pierre Boutonnet (INRA) and Selim Louafi (CIRAD). As well as the conference, meetings between institutions and field visits were also organised.

 

The final steering committee meeting, held on 6 and 7 March at Paramaribo in Surinam and attended by AFD and FGEF representatives, reviewed the project’s achievements and successes, highlighting the fruitful partnerships developed with the WWF.

The project brought significant advances towards mercury-free extraction of gold and the introduction of REDD+ processes, new protected areas were created and the scientific studies produced brought new knowledge on the environment. The project also organised numerous workshops for exchanges between different territories. All in all, awareness of environmental conservation issues has clearly emerged throughout the region.

Most of the activities took place in French Guiana, Surinam and Guyana, focusing on protected area management, reducing gold-panning impacts, sustainable forest management and the management and conservation of aquatic ecosystems and species. All these activities, conducted for governments (developing regulations, capacity-building), businesses and national agencies (improved practice and eco-certification, pilot sites, training in ecotourism) and local communities (more sustainable use of the resources they depend on) were backed up by wide-ranging communication, awareness-raising and educational campaigns.

The FGEF will be pursuing its activities for the Guyana Shield, in particular by contributing to the project for a regional REDD+ development platform.