Regional workshop on the “Hybrid HIMA approach to community based resource management”

The regional workshop on the “Hybrid HIMA approach to community based resource management” will take place in Istanbul, Turkey from the 14th to the 16th April 2011. The focus of the workshop will be addressing the West Asian – North African region’s situation, strengths and challenges in natural resource governance. It aims to stimulate constructive debate on priority areas of common concern between participating countries as well as to endorse the Hybrid Hima as a coalescent of centralized and decentralized governance systems in future efforts for effective management of protected areas. It is organized by the West Asia – North Africa (WANA) Forum, the United Nations University-Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL) and the World Justice Project(WJP), in partnership with the Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA).

Hima is a traditional system of land designation and customary practices. In Arabic “Hima” means protected area and is in fact a traditional system of community-based natural and human resource management practiced in West Asia and North Africa for more than 1500 years, and links to food, energy and water security.  For more information on the Hima system click here.

The Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL) has been actively promoting the Hima revival whose overall goal is to mesh traditional practices with recent conservation science as a way to reach sustainable development. Since 2004, SPNL has re-established five Himas, in key biodiversity areas; namely Ebel es-Saqi, in South Lebanon, Kfar Zabad, Anjar in the Bekaa region and Qoleileh, Mansouri in South Lebanon. The Hybrid Hima approach is a community-based approach to managing the natural and human resources that utilizes traditional knowledge and modern-day innovation.

It is expected that the workshop, with participation of regional stakeholders, will facilitate the development of a regional and comprehensive policy brief that assists in encouraging multi-stakeholder involvement and empowering local communities in protected area management. The participants which will come from various countries will share experiences, build capacities among stakeholders and strengthen information networks and knowledge management systems. Ultimately, a strategy will be devised for including Hybrid Hima in regional protected area management, on the basis of clearer policies and legislation relating to natural resource governance engrossing indigenous people and local communities.

The workshop will consist of case study presentations and group discussions in order to identify gaps and opportunities, and to put together key recommendations in the form of a policy-brief that can be of maximal benefit to the region.

Workshop Objectives:

• Review progress in country level implementation of the programme of work on protected areas and make a comparative assessment of conservation attempts across the WANA region;
• Identify constraints and opportunities of each country;
• Initiate networking amongst groups and individuals of various countries of the region, and strengthen capacity through exchange of country experiences, case-studies, available tools and resources;
• Establish institutional capacity and mechanisms to facilitate the legal recognition and effective management of community-based conserved areas in a manner consistent with the goals of conserving both biodiversity and sustainable socio-economic development;
• Develop recommendations for follow-up action at policy and programmatic levels.

Further Objectives:

• Documentary film on hima in WANA to document tribal men and women’s verbal and written indigenous knowledge acquired and maintained for over 1500 years.

• Informed by case studies, develop an empirical online database and interactive map on hybrid hima(traditional knowledge and modern-day innovations).
• Publish Hima: A Way of Life, 2^nd Edition.

To find out more about the hima concept click here...