Bio-diversity

The project aims to build a guide to sustainable Palestinian forest resources in northern and southern West Bank through the assessment of three Palestinian forests being the most diverse in terms of vital content. The project also aims at the rehabilitation of degraded areas in these targeted forests through replanting of degraded areas in accordance to the available project budget. The project include various activities to achieve the overall objective, Wadi al Quf and Al Qarin forests in Hebron Governorate and Umm at Tut forest in Jenin Governorate will be targeted, to study the status of natural forest resources and their landscape in order to better plan its management and protection. The project includes firstly the introduction of the project to the local communities surrounding the three forests of the project; to involve them in planning process for the protection of natural capital surrounding their communities. Then the project will study the biotic components, in particular the vegetation cover dominant in the three forests through desk research and field surveys, and analyzing spatially the landscape variability and change in vegetation density over fifteen years through the use of aerial photos, GIS, and land use maps in order to identify the most degraded areas within targeted forests. This will followed by two workshops of rapid appraisal assessment conducted for the relevant decision makers, relevant stakeholders, and local communities surrounding the forests. To discuss the results of the research and development of project indicators to measure the economic and cultural importance of the three forests

Palestine