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Institutional Plan for Implementation
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Goals
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The goals of the Institutional Plan are
- Improve inter- and intra-organization co-ordination, and clarify environmental
management responsibilities
- Improve the efficiency of service provision
- Development of a culture of planning for future activities, with evaluation
of implementation
- Increase pro-active management, particularly in the wetland
- Develop the management capacity and commitment of staff
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Potential Solutions and Institutional Development
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At the Anzali Wetland level, improved integration and effectiveness of
management would require a recognized forum of stakeholders, and a body
that can execute the decisions of the forum. Currently there are 16 provincial-level
Thematic Working Groups on various issues, such as Landuse and Environment,
Water, Agriculture and Natural Resources, etc., and these working groups
can be the right forums for integrated environmental management. However,
many of them do not meet very often, and they are forums for discussion
and decision-making, rather than responsible for continuous management.
A potentially workable solution is the formation of an independent body
referred to as "Conservancy". A conservancy is run by a committee of stakeholders (delegated
by provincial council, local councils, representatives from NGOs, representatives
from conservation bodies, etc.), but it also has a full-time staff which
acts as the implementing executive, and provides secretariat of the committee,
as demonstrated in the figure below.
This group is involved in conservation, environmental protection/improvement,
environmental research/monitoring, environmental education, control of
navigation, and is also responsible for Ramsar issues. |
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Institutional Arrangements
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Legal Positions of Conservancy
Any new body would need to fit within the Iranian legal and administrative
system in order to have enough power to make decisions and to execute them,
and have an independent budget in order to be able to use all possible
legal regional/national funds. Meeting were organized in Oct., 2003, to
discuss the possible form of the body and the steps needed to establish
it, and submitted a proposal to the Governor of Guilan Province for review.
It was noted that during the 2nd National Steering Committee Meeting, a
concern was raised about the difficulty of establishing a new governmental
organization given the size of the current government organizations. These
issues will be discussed further in the subsequent study phase.
Functions of the Conservancy
Some of the issues that could best be handled by a single management body
include:
- Designation of new protected areas or expansion of existing protected area
- Elaboration of regulations or guidelines
- Tourism development
- Environmental education and public awareness
- Conservation activities
- Others
Outside the wetland, the proposed conservancy could be given formal consultative
and advisory responsibilities in the whole catchment, which would accord
with the watershed management approach to the wetland conservation. However,
this is not the complete answer to the challenge of improving environmental
management in the watershed. More effective use of Provincial Working Group
on Land & Environment, the amalgamation of NRGO and Watershed Management
Department of MOJA, and other institutional strengthening are needed. |
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Capacity Development of Stakeholders
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Many professional staff of the organizations concerned with environmental management in the Anzali basin are locked within their own technical 'silos'. What is needed is cross-sectoral training, in which staff from several different parts of government are brought together for environmental management training. |
