Local News

Against the backdrop of increasing risk of climate change induced impacts in the unique mountain forest ecosystems of Armenia and especially the intensifying forest fire problem under the country’s aridifying climate conditions, the UNDP-supported GEF-financed “Adaptation to climate change impacts in mountain forest ecosystems of Armenia” project has carried out a range of activities during the project implementation starting from 2009 to build the capacities of relevant stakeholders to address the forest fire risk and to enhance the resilience of forests under climate change. Importantly, by building the capacities of the forests to resists and respond to the changing climate conditions, the project has aimed also to protect the provision of ecosystem services critical for the adaptation of rural population to climate change.

An analysis of the success factors and barriers of the approaches chosen by the project to build the wildfire management capacities in Armenia has been captured in the recently published E-publication “Building Wildfire Management Capacities to Enhance Adaptation of the Vulnerable Mountain Forests of Armenia - Lessons from Recent Experience”.

By providing illustrative examples of improving wildfire management, the publication aims to enable replication of these adaptation options, which in the Armenian context were found to be especially successful in increasing preparedness in the forest and protected area sectors to include climate change risks into forest management planning and practice.

The publication can be retrieved from here.