DBSB: Anatolia Watershed Rehabilitation Project - under WB-GEF Strategic Partnership for Nutrient Reduction in the Danube River and Black Sea

1. Project development objective:The project’s overall development objective is to support sustainable natural resource management practices in 28 microcatchments in Anatolia and Turkey’s Black Sea Region and thereby raise incomes of communities affected by resource degradation. In support of this objective, the project will:encourage local communities to take responsibility for planning and implementing an integrated approach to sustainable natural resource management in selected microcatchments; introduce communities to more environmentally-friendly farming and forestry production practices to raise land productivity, to reduce pressures on marginal lands, and to improve household income; help reduce nutrient discharge from agricultural sources into the Black Sea; strengthen the policy formulation and regulatory capacity towards meeting European Union (EU) standards for agricultural nutrient pollution control; improve the overall framework for river basin planning and management in the context of EU directives on water; strengthen institutional capacity to promote sustainable natural resource management and to raise public awareness about resource degradation issues.2. Global objective:The key global environment objective is to introduce farming practices which will reduce the discharge of agricultural nutrients into surface and ground water in watersheds draining into the Black Sea in four provinces. The Project will help introduce improved manure and nutrient management practices as well asorganic farming which, over the long run, will help reduce the discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus into the surface and ground waters of Turkey and the Black Sea. Project activities in this area are directly linked to the Strategic Action Plan for the Protection and Rehabilitation of the Black Sea, formulated with the assistance of the GEF. The nutrient reduction component is being prepared under the umbrella of the BlackSea/Danube Strategic Partnership-Nutrient Reduction Investment Fund under which riparian countries are eligible for Global Environment Facility (GEF) grants for projects that help to control or mitigate nutrient discharge into the Black Sea.