C. Special Features

3. Building Management Capacity for Biodiversity Conservation in the TSBR

32. Enhancing Management Capacity. The Project will establish and equip protected area management units in Battambang and Kompong Thom towns building on existing MOE facilities. In the three core areas of the TSBR, the Project will also establish and equip core area management centers that will additionally serve as visitor centers. The Project will institute a process for identifying additional core areas within the TSBR, including areas important for preserving biodiversity such as fish sanctuaries. This will necessitate establishment of standardized procedures for specifying the types of protected areas within the TSBR, reviewing the existing core areas and fish sanctuaries, and harmonizing specifications. Supporting these activities will be a training needs analysis, and implementation of staff training programs in protected area and biodiversity management.

33. Developing Systems for Monitoring and Management. The Project will design and implement a biodiversity monitoring system for the TSBR, targeting in particular indicator species of water birds and fish. It will establish a rapid response mechanism for seasonal protection of biodiversity, especially in fish sanctuaries and Prek Toal, but also at other promising sites in the TSBR.46 Further, it will develop a strategy and carry out an awareness campaign for the control of exotic species, and conduct trials for eradicating or managing them. The Project will also develop and implement a strategy to better enforce laws and regulations in and around the core areas and other important sites that may be identified in the TSBR to protect biodiversity and natural habitats. Lastly, the Project will identify income-generation activities that directly threaten biodiversity in the core areas and develop alternative livelihoods for both migrants and permanent inhabitants so as to modify those activities.

34. Promoting Biodiversity Conservation Awareness, Education, and Outreach. The Project will develop and implement an environmental awareness, education, and outreach program (EAEOP) for the TSBR that builds on previous, ongoing, and planned activities of Government agencies and NGOs. The EAEOP will include the provision of about four floating environmental education centers for regular extension services to villages around the TSBR.47 The Project will also ensure that the Department of Education and Communication in MOE liaises with the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports (MOEYS) to integrate the EAEOP into selected schools as part of the cluster schools program. Further, efforts will be made to include environmental awareness in the programs of religious groups and promote the National Environment Day to the population of the Tonle Sap region.

C. Special Features

35. Strategic Planning. Sustainable management and conservation of natural resources and biodiversity should be considered from the perspective of the basin feeding the Tonle Sap. In keeping with this outlook, the Project initiates a framework within which subsequent projects could address generic management and conservation concerns, propagate community-based natural resource management, promote sustainable livelihoods, pioneer stewardship of core

46 Prek Toal is probably the most significant water bird nesting ground in Southeast Asia. 47 The Project will replicate the floating environmental center (Greater Environment Chong Khneas Office [GECKO]) funded under FAO's project for Participatory Natural Resources Management in the Tonle Sap Region. GECKO is moored at Chong Khneas and moves around as necessary. It is used to: (i) extend environmental education to communities, particularly schoolchildren; (ii) build the capacity of schoolteachers in environmental education; (iii) make tourists more aware of the environment; and (iv) generate educational and publicity materials for free dissemination and sale.