We are thrilled to announce that the four-year forest restoration project, called FORACCA (the Forest Restoration And Climate Change in Armenia (FORACCA) has officially started. The project is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) (50%) and the Forest Alliance of Armenia. The Forest Alliance members are: My Forest Armenia NGO, Shen NGO, ATP and FPWC. The project is implemented in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research (WSL).
FORACCA is a 10-year project, and the first stage will last 4 years. During this period, our activities will impact 520 hectares. We will implement four different components: starting this spring, we will start afforesting 320 ha in Lernajour 4, using our standard method, the following years, we will plant another 10 ha using drip irrigation in our Shirakamut afforestation area, which we already successfully tested on 2 ha. Finally, we will do forest transformation work on 50 ha of a degraded monoculture pine forest by planting various deciduous forest tree and shrub species. In addition, starting this spring, we will carry out important maintenance work on 140 ha of a young forest planted in Lernajour 1 & 2 in 2023.
On March 6, Ursula Läubli, Deputy Regional Director of the Swiss Cooperation South Caucasus and Irina Peyer, SDC Programme Manager for the South Caucasus, together with their team members and our partners from the Forest Alliance visited our nursery and greenhouse in Gugark to get acquainted with our infrastructure and production capacity. This visit marked the official start of the project.
FORACCA’s primary objectives are to advance scientific understanding of Armenia's climate change-related challenges, develop capacities to address them, and promote climate-smart practices in rural areas and forests. Ultimately, FORACCA aims to enable evidence-based policymaking for climate adaptation and efficient forest management.
My Forest Armenia has demonstrated its commitment and success in large-scale reforestation and we are proud to have been selected to implement a large reforestation component. This project will allow us to strengthen even more our impact to protect and increase forests in Armenia, thereby acting proactively in our struggle against climate change.