Transhumance for Biodiversity Conservation in the Southern High Atlas

The project will conserve globally significant biodiversity in the southern flank of the High Atlas through an adaptive management scheme integrating pastoral range management with biodiversity conservation in a grazing-dependent ecosystem. Simultaneous global and local benefits are expected, which would ensure both a demonstration effect and a self-sustaining local process after project completion. Threats to biodiversity are rooted in imbalanced incentives towards indiscriminate settlement, conversion of wetlands and common pastures for crops, reduced mobility of livestock, and lack of awareness. The Alternative will address these root causes through a revival of biodiversity-friendly transhumance and common property management regimes, land use planning and innovative incentives for rangeland and wildlife biodiversity conservation. The GEF increment will remove institutional, economic, technological, information, and policy barriers to demonstrate the effectiveness of this innovative approach, and its applicability to other areas characterized by aridity, ecosystems co-dependent on ruminant grazing, and traditional common property management regimes that still remain viable. The project meets priorities set by the National Biodiversity Strategy, by GEF Operational Guidelines, and by the agro-biodiversity policy note (GEF/c.12/inf.10), for the "promotion of pastoral systems and grazing practices that ensure dryland biodiversity conservation".