What has been the situation?

Due to its highly strategic bio-geographical position at the crossroads of three continents, Turkey is considered to be one of the most important countries in the temperate world in terms of its floristic diversity. The number of vascular plant species in the country is estimated at 9,000 of which one third is endemic, nearly 1,700 are rare and 12 are extinct.

Despite the significance, the total extent of forest areas benefiting from some form of protection is less than 4% of the national forest cover. The last national-level assessment of the PA system (1996–1999), led the Government to pledge to increase PA coverage to embody representative samples of forest ecosystems. In 1999, as Turkey's Gift to the Earth, the Government made a commitment to establish or extend protected areas at the nine identified forest hot spots. The first step towards realizing this commitment was taken when the Küre Mountains was officially gazetted as a National Park (KMNP). The commitment to addressing the coverage gap and improving management effectiveness is clearly articulated in GoT's decision to designate KMNP, and extend this effort to the other 8 forest hot spots in the country. However, national capacity to effectively implement this commitment is currently lacking.

What is our mission?

The project will contribute to achieving global environmental benefits by enhancing the management effectiveness and sustainability in 117,000 ha of land in forest hotspots designated as forest protected areas in Turkey and indirectly influencing other eight forest hotpots of future forest protected areas covering globally significant forest ecosystems, through up-scaling and replication of best management practices. This will be accomplished through designing, piloting and adopting the cost-effective conservation management approaches for forest protected areas, demonstrating sustainable natural resource management approaches in buffer areas and disseminating the lessons learned from demonstration work in the first established forest PAs to the other forest hot spots in Turkey.

How are we doing this?

UNDP is the implementing organization of the project that aims to increase the area of forest protected areas in Turkey, as the country committed in 1999. These requirements will be addressed by the project implementation, which will develop a pilot forest protected areas management model and will work on disseminating this model.

The capacity of national and regional institutions on forest protected areas will be enhanced. In particular, capacity will be developed in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MOEF) and WWF Turkey. Public and private partnerships will be a key component for the success of the project.

Who are our partners?

UNDP is the implementing agency of the project. Four departments of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MOEF) are involved in this project: General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks, General Directorate of Forestry, General Directorate of Forest Village Relations and General Directorate of Afforestration and Erosion Control. The project which is executed by MoEF, is funded by GEF and the Government of Turkey. WWF Turkey, on the other hand, is the project partner, which will mainly be supporting the technical and capacity building components.

How will Turkey benefit?

The project will assist the Government of Turkey to move towards declaring most of area of the forest hotspots as protected – this will be either by declaring new protected areas or expanding existing ones to encompass new globally significant forest ecosystems. Turkey's efforts to enhance forest protected areas management and long-term strategies into the legislative framework, policy making and implementation structures to will be supported.

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