The project‘s goal is to catalyse the sustainability of Iran‘s system of wetland protected areas (WPAs),

thereby enhancing its effectiveness as a tool for conserving globally significant biodiversity. The project‘s

objective is to systematically remove or substantially mitigate threats facing globally significant

biodiversity and sustainability at two demonstration sites, while ensuring that the lessons learned through

these demonstrations are absorbed within wetland protected area (WPA) management systems throughout

Iran and most particularly at a set of target replication sites. Given that a range of similar threats, root

causes and barriers face protected wetlands across Iran – particularly the tendency for key threats to

originate within a wider watershed area outside of WPA boundaries – a demonstration of their removal

will be of broad relevance and potential replicability.