Abbottabad Conservation Strategy Abbottabad District is the headquarters of the Hazara Division and the summer capital of the provincial government. Spread over an area of 696 square miles, it has an estimated population of one million and shares borders with Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Haripur and the districts of Mansehra and Rawalpindi. Lying at the foot of the Himalayas, Abbottabad's climate is generally cold. In the northern and eastern parts, it snows heavily from November through February. The district receives approximately 1,485 mm of rain, 60% of which falls during the monsoons.

http://www.acs.iucnp.org

Despite the fact that Abbottabad is relatively rich in natural resources such as forests, a rapidly growing local population and the influx of Afghan refugees - particularly in the early eighties - is putting ever-increasing pressures on the district's natural resource base. While a number of government and non-government initiatives are underway to contain the threats to the environment and provide social sector facilities in the district, there is an urgent need to coordinate and streamline these efforts in order to maximise their impact. Similarly, there is a need to integrate the priorities of the local people and ensure their participation in the development process. Given these imperatives, work was initiated to develop a comprehensive sustainable development agenda under the title of the Abbottabad Conservation Strategy.

Funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Abbottabad Conservation Strategy (ACS) was jointly developed by the District Administration and IUCN-The World Conservation Union. The entire process was guided through a District Conservation Round Table that drew upon representatives of all stakeholders, and provided a forum for sharing and debating sustainable development issues. A Steering Committee headed by the Deputy Commissioner and comprising of selective round table members coordinated its activities. It is hoped that the partnerships formed during this development process will be the basis for continued cooperation in taking the ACS forward.

The ACS is poised to be different from other past and ongoing development initiatives in Abbottabad. It is based on the principle of participatory planning and employs mechanisms that ensure active involvement of, and ownership by key players: government, media, NGOs, academia and civil society. Instead of narrowly focusing on one specific area, the ACS takes an integrated approach to development, forging linkages between ecological, economic and social issues. The ACS also seeks to study innovative financial measures to facilitate implementation and translate policy into action.

The development of the Strategy was divided into four phases:

Phase I: Establishment of an office, networking with partners and the preparation and distribution of an introductory paper on the ACS.

Phase II: Consultations with partners leading to the formulation and notification of the District Conservation Round Table and the Steering Committee by the Deputy Commissioner's office. Two meetings of the Steering Committee were held to identify the major sustainable development issues in the District.

Phase III: Two Round Table meetings held to develop consensus on the issues identified by the Steering Committee in the previous phase, followed by public consultations in all the union councils and selected villages. Resultantly, an Inception Report was prepared and technical papers commissioned.

Phase IV: The technical papers were peer reviewed and discussed at the Round Table. A report on the public consultations was also prepared and reviewed by the Round Table. The draft of the strategy document, identifying major issues and their possible solutions was produced for presentation to the Round Table. Work on some demonstration projects was also initiated.

For further details please visit the website at http://www.acs.iucnp.org

Other Strategies: NCS | BCS | SPCS | NASSD | CCS