The Role of Participatory Approach in Land Degradation Monitoring In The Syrian Coastal Zone

• General Organization of Remote Sensing (GORS) Damascus - Syria
• Email: gors@mail.sy
• International Conference About the Sustainable Development in the Syrian Coast

Abstract

The Interactive Participatory Programs (IPPs) have significant importance in the environment - related projects. They play a great role in encouraging researchers, local people, concerned authorities and decision makers to deal with this kind of projects, and bring all of them together for preserving the environment and natural resources. They also help build up the environmental awareness and knowledge. This paper presents the Interactive Participatory Program (IPP) applied in the frame of the project "Improving Coastal Land Degradation Monitoring in Lebanon and Syria".

The first activity of IPP, was preparing a questionnaire. It was distributed to some national institutions (stakeholders) classified under five categories: Universities, Natural Resources Institutions, Service Institutions, NGOs and Media.
The questionnaire contained few clear and simple questions, focusing on the importance of such a program in dealing with preservation of natural resources, causes of land degradation in the Syrian coast, the best ways to control soil erosion, and the role of media and international participation. The second activity of IPP was calling for a Workshop in order to gather: a) all members of the national team, b) representatives of relevant national and local institutions authorities, and c) representatives of stakeholders to be involved in the IPP, in order to:

• establish interactive communication and dialogue among the attendees,
• present the objectives of the project, and the draft of IPP Action Plan,
• present and discuss the principles and procedures of participation and the available techniques and tools,
• and identification of stakeholders to be involved in the project.

The third activity of IPP was field work which is the main part of the work. It was implemented in parallel with different stages of the project activities as follows:
- In reconnaissance survey covering Latakia and Tartous governorates where, most of the related governmental institutions and NGOs were visited and land degradation and participatory approach were discussed.
- In detailed survey covering Qerdaha district (Latakia) and Sheikh Bader district (Tartous). The following tools were applied in the two pilot areas: Information, Consultations, Discussions, Questionnaires, Seminars, Workshops, Meetings and dialogues, Field visits, and Transect walks. General and technical topics were discussed in different occasions with different people (authorities, decision makers, decision executers, stakeholders, NGOs, farmers, land owners, rural women, students ….etc).
The fourth and the fifth phases of the work were evaluation and the preparing reports. In conclusion, the participatory approach applied during the period of the project was very positive. All stakeholders were calling for future participatory approach implementation; because of the pioneering character of the participatory activities implemented during the fieldwork. Finally it is recommended that future participation actions should be improved and strengthened.