ICARDA News

International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas

P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria
Phone: (963-21) 2213433, 2213477, 2225112, 2225012
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E-mail: ICARDA@CGIAR.ORG
Website: www.icarda.org
30 September 2008
Media contact: icarda-media@cgiar.org
 
Watershed Project – Growing Impact in Pakistan
A Watershed Association – literally. Twenty-two community organizations and multiple villages will work together to plan and implement watershed management interventions.
The Integrated Watershed Project - Pakistan (IWPP), established in 2007, works with farm communities to improve livelihoods and protect the environment in the Barani areas of Punjab province, Pakistan. Project activities target an area of about 20,000 hectares, where conditions are representative of over 1 million hectares of Barani lands where rural communities face multiple challenges: low rainfall, severe erosion, rapidly declining vegetation cover and widespread poverty. The partners include ICARDA, Vienna University in Austria, and several Pakistani agencies, including the Soil and Water Conservation Research Institute, Barani Agriculture Research Institute (BARI), Arid Agriculture University - Rawalpindi (AAUR) and the National Rural Support Program (NRSP).
The project recently passed three major milestones. A new Watershed Association was formed, mobile nurseries for fruit and forest trees became fully operational, and a technical training program was conducted for researchers.

Community-led watershed management. Effective watershed management requires multiple communities (with potentially conflicting interests) to work together to design and implement interventions over the entire watershed. This is often difficult, especially in areas with high levels of degradation and poverty. On 26 August, representatives of 22 community organizations in the project area gathered along with representatives from each of the project partners. The communities formed a Watershed Association – the first in the region – that will resolve many of these problems. The objectives and modus operandi of the Association were agreed upon, and office bearers elected. Operations will be overseen by an eleven-member committee which will meet every month, at different villages, by rotation.

The Association will prepare community action plans and livelihood improvement packages, building on previous work by ICARDA and its partners. The packages include multiple components: water harvesting, soil conservation, crop improvement and diversification, cultivation of fruit and forest trees, and range management. The meeting was organized by the NRSP; ICARDA and other project partners provided technical support.
Mobile nurseries have been highly successful, with strong demand from communities.
Mobile nurseries. Fruit and forest trees can help arrest degradation,and boost income – but seedlings are not easily available. The project is using low-cost 'mobile nurseries' to address this problem. In the first week of September, 2500 fruit and forest tree seedlings were distributed in four communities. Communities shared part of the cost, and managed the entire distribution process. This is a continuation of previous efforts: the project first evaluated the potential of various fruit tree species, empowered women to plant and manage the trees, and then introduced the mobile nurseries to scale out tree cultivation.

Training. The project is also helping to build national capacity in water-related research. In August, 20 Pakistani scientists from six organizations participated in a 3-day training course on Assessment of evapotranspiration and water productivity. Prof. Mohammad Latif, Director, Centre of Excellence in Water Resources Engineering, Lahore, and Dr Akhtar Ali, Water Engineer, ICARDA, delivered the training, which included classroom sessions as well as field demonstrations of high-efficiency irrigation systems and other modern agricultural practices. The participants rated the training as "highly useful… extremely practical". Dr Mohammad Rashid, Director General of the Ayub Agriculture Research Institute, commended the project for organizing the course, and hoped that more courses, on various topics, would be conducted in the future. 

About ICARDA: Established in 1977, ICARDA (www.icarda.org) is one of the 15 international research centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). ICARDA serves the entire developing world for the improvement of barley, lentil, and faba bean; and dry-area developing countries for the on-farm management of water, improvement of nutrition and productivity of small ruminants (sheep and goats), and rehabilitation and management of rangelands. In the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region, ICARDA is responsible for the improvement of durum and bread wheats, chickpea, pasture and forage legumes and farming systems; and for the protection and enhancement of the natural resource base of water, land, and biodiversity.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) (www.cgiar.org) is a strategic alliance of countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations supporting15 international research centers that mobilizes cutting-edge science to promote sustainable development by reducing hunger and poverty, improving human nutrition and health, and protecting the environment.

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