Collaborative Management for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Northwest Biosphere Reserve

The project seeks to achieve the collaborative management of the Northwest Biosphere Reserve, by building capacity among stakeholders to enable a real involvement of local decision makers at different levels in the management process, with aim of reversing negative tendencies (especially the processes of desertification) and conserving existing biological diversity. It is envisaged that co-management will a permit a more equitable distribution of the benefits generated by the sustainable use of the natural resources of the Biosphere Reserve among the local population, and especially the rural population, which lives in conditions of acute poverty, in a predominately arid environment which is subject to a continuous process of gradual degradation.