World Bank RESILAND Armenia Resilient Landscape Project

Here comes a summary of results achieved so far: Project coordination. A Project Steering Committee has been established to coordinate activities across ministries and agencies. The Project Steering Committee includes representatives of the following agencies: MOE, Ministry of Finance, MTAI, and Ministry of Economy. Project Geographical Areas, Sites & Communities/Settlements. Project planning and preparations have taken place in various national parks. Activities related to forestry, landscape management, wetland restoration (including management of wetlands and mine sites) have taken place. It was also confirmed that the project interventions will take place on state owned land or community owned land. New sites under the jurisdiction of "Hayantar" SNCO were selected using digital maps provided by "Hayantar" SNCO, ensuring no overlap with other ongoing projects. Some adjustments have been made for the selected sites because they are privately owned land and thus cannot be included. New areas of forest restoration are still within the originally selected communities under the framework of the project. The Program Implementation Unit (PIU) has prepared nine TORs for activities to be implemented under each component. The planned Biodiversity Forum will also be included in the Work Plan, to be financed under this component. The Environment Program Implementation Unit (EPIU) will discuss more details with the COP17 organizers to better coordinate the relevant events and create synergies during COP17. Wetlands restoration: The wetland restoration related activities will be prioritized to promote biodiversity conservation with active participation of communities. The engineering design of the wetland restoration works and the development of ESIA for the wetland restoration will be packaged as a single contract and its TOR will be finalized by end of May including preparation of the TOR for the actual restoration works. The project is enhancing environmental protection with no negative impact on the environment. The lake Savan wetland civil and hydraulic works including tourism infrastructure should be completed by Oct. 2025 and biodiversity conservation related activities can be completed by August 2026, which will also facilitate demonstration of the expected results to the Biodiversity COP17 to be held in Armenia in October 2026. Moreover, priority will be given to Khor Virap Marshes and Lake Gilli basin Wetland Restoration, which is expected to be completed by July 2026. Given the sensitive ecosystems around the Sevan Lake National Park, the Gilli basin and the protected areas the mission emphasized the importance of a robust technical design of the relevant restoration, conservation and community activities. More importantly, it is critical to make extra efforts to carry out broad based consultations with all the key stakeholders throughout the project implementation duration, including with all the communities and development partners who are implementing a wide range of projects in the area to ensure ownership and sustainability, All mine sites: The terms of reference (TOR) for site assessments, remediation design and Feasibility Studies (FS) respectively, should cover all three mine (Tandzut, Kavart and Bashkent) sites to maximize the contract amount and encourage qualified international bidders to express interest. The TOR will consider (i) a risk based approach that prioritizes actions at the sites that reduce risks to sensitive receptors to acceptable levels, even if the sites are not remediated to pristine premining conditions and (ii) options for the productive repurposing of mine sites for value addition and the generation of revenue streams that can contribute to site remediation, as well as longterm care, maintenance and monitoring. Forest restoration: The TOR for identification of activities for forest restoration works in Lori, Syunik and Gegharkunik will be submitted to the Bank by the end of April 2025. The scope of the TOR includes identification of forest maintenance and restoration activities as well as preparation of the TOR for the actual forest maintenance and restoration. It should also include the preparation of an abbreviated Environmental and Social Impact Analysis (ESIA). The contract is expected to be signed by mid July, 2025 while the actual work should be completed by November, 2025 (max 4 months) and its final report review and revisions is expected to be completed by December 2025. Promoting Communities Benefits: Moreover, community participation is prioritised and it will lead to decreased pressure from communities on forest and wetlands through support/provision of economic activities that will create green jobs and enhance benefits from landscape restoration activities including agroforestry and commercialization of the traditional use of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). The TORs for those activities that will be focused on the development of agroforestry and commercialization of traditional use of NTFPs as well as other economic activities. A Service Provider will be contracted to facilitate the work with communities (including call for proposals, support with business plans and proposals development, awareness raising and stakeholder engagement) as well as implement selected proposals and conduct monitoring activities. The EPIU has shared the draft TOR for Service Provider with the Bank for review. The contract is expected to be signed by mid June 2025. Ecotourism: The activities supports development of infrastructure for ecotourism in forest (e.g, hiking trails), and wetland (e.g., bird watching towers) and improvement of knowledge and skills of the local communities in ecotourism and hospitality. The draft TOR for Ecotourism infrastructure has been shared with the Bank for review and the contract is expected to be signed by mid June, 2025. The Tourism Committee indicated to the mission that there is no need to make any policy analysis relating to ecotourism since there has never been any policy, legislation or strategy for ecotourism. Therefore, ecotourism policy analysis will be removed from component one and the Tourism Committee will inform the EPIU what exactly they would like to see from the project support on policy related matters for ecotourism. Planning is ongoing for selected tourism activities in prioritised areas.

The overall objective is to (i) increase the area under sustainable landscape management in selected locations and (ii) to promote sustainable economic activities to communities in targeted landscapes in Armenia. Outcome objectives are the following: - Improved national implementation capacity with appropriate policy tools on forest and wetland, beneficiaries equipped with skills, knowledge and trained. - Enhanced enabling environment for community forest and wetland management. - Better income opportunities (including green jobs) for wetland-adjacent and forest-dependent communities (and for women) including improved ecotourism market. - Restored wetlands in selected areas, improved management of wetland areas. - Restored degraded forests in selected locations, improved natural regeneration, reduced pressure on forests. - Restored abandoned mining sites. - Improved management of existing forests.