An exhibition will be held today at Wild Jordan showing the products of Dibeen’s local communities.  The exhibition is organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) and is part of the $1.1million project “Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity in Dibeen Nature Reserve” which was initiated in 2004. 

The reserve is surrounded by five main villages which are Dibeen, Burma, Majdal, Najda and Al-Jazaza.  They are populated with around 8000 people and many of them depend on the forest resources to generate their daily income, mainly from agriculture and partly from livestock grazing or wood collection. 

Since Dibeen was declared a Nature Reserve in March 2005, and as part of the project’s need to address the threats to Dibeen Forest, there was a clear need to provide alternative livelihoods for local people and to find sustainable ways of utilizing forest resources.  These aspects are addressed in the project through the socio-economic and outreach programmes and other important instruments for regulating inappropriate uses, notably land use planning and the enforcement of protected area bylaws.

In order to ensure that the socio-economic programme addresses community issues, RSCN carried out activities that engaged the local communities and local government is part of the Project Steering Committee.

The exhibit of today is a market testing for products of local communities that were created based on sustainable use of forest resources. The exhibition is a start-up phase with the aim to improve the local communities’ chances of long-term, commercial viability.

Marketing, in particular, is an area of work often overlooked, yet it is critical to success and relatively expensive to achieve.  This project is therefore proposing to develop a resource mobilization strategy that will help to draw in more financial and technical support to supplement GEF resources for the socio-economic components.  This strategy will target international and bilateral donors and the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation’s Enhanced Productivity Programme, which has embarked funds for small business development in rural areas.  The project will also cooperate with UNDP/GEF Small Grant Programme.

RSCN, a non-governmental national organization devoted to the conservation of Jordan’s natural environment, is the implementing agency for the “Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity in Dibeen Nature Reserve” project.  While main financing of the project is by GEF with cost sharing from the UNDP, and the project is administered by UNDP. 

UNDP/GEF is a longstanding partner for Jordan that helps the country in funding projects and programmes that protect the global environment.  UNDP/GEF grants support projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants.

For further information kindly contact the UNDP Environment Unit at tel. 566 8171 ext. 212. or  Mr. Nash'at Humaidan, Project Manager at tel. 5337931