July 4, 2015
From June 23 to 25, 2015 a training on ‘Carbon Balance Appraisal of Agriculture Forestry and other Land Use’ (AFOLU) projects and policies was held at 山ǿ. The training course was organized in close cooperation between the university’s Environmental Management and Sustainable Development Program (EM&SD) and the Ex-Ante Carbon-balance Tool (EX-ACT) Development Group of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The training purposes and objectives were 1) to enhance the capacity base of National Experts from the Ministry for Agriculture and Amelioration of Kyrgyzstan and the Ministry of Environment, University professors and students, FAO Global Environment Facility experts, World Bank Technical staff to appraise mitigation impacts of AFOLU projects and policies using EX-ACT, 2) to provide an overall knowledge of the utility and implication of appraising investment projects and the methods of economic analysis to be applied to such appraisals.
The Integrated Forestry Ecosystem Management Project (IFEMP) aims to support an ecosystem-based approach to the improved management of areas controlled by the leskhozes including forested lands, pasture, and unproductive or marginal lands. This will be done through support for institutional reform and capacity building, the introduction of participatory management planning at the leskhoz level, and support for the implementation of those plans in pilot areas. The project aims to harness the potential of forests to reduce poverty, integrate forests in sustainable economic development, and protect vital local and global environmental services and values.
The workshop was attended by local and international experts, as well as a number of 山ǿ students.
“I think the workshop was held successful. All participants have found the workshop quite interesting and useful. Staff of the State Agency of Environmental Protection of KR and Forestry is an executive agency to implement the GEF/FAO project, so they were happy to get such kind of training course. Many students of EM&SD Program of 山ǿ also got many impressions from the workshop because the tool is easy to use and all the assignments were clear to fulfill. They will use the knowledge from the workshop in their study in relevant EM&SD Program courses and in their future works. All participants got certificates about their attendance in the workshop,” – Zheenbek Kulenbekov, EM&SD Program Chair said.