The Ministry of Environment

The Jordanian Ministry of Environment is constantly seeking to protect the environment and to improve its components in a sustainable manner. Accordingly, the Ministry exerted efforts in maintaining the Jordanian environment in full collaboration with all the partners and the active entities in the environmental sector and in other cross-cutting sectors.

The Ministry of Environment’s strategy (2017-2019) has been developed in a time where Jordan is witnessing various interior and exterior changes and challenges. This effort has also been conducted in response to the instructions of His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein in prioritizing the environment and granting it special care to ensure the development of the legislative frameworks; providing specialized skilled personnel and activating partnerships to protect the environment.

The Ministry’s vision is to be a lead Ministry in protecting and sustaining the components of the environment for a better life.

The Ministry’s mission is conserving the environment, through developing legal, strategic and policy frameworks, in addition to spreading environmental culture, enhancing environmental monitoring and law enforcement, transitioning to a green economy within a participatory approach, and supporting institutional structures to contribute to achieving sustainable development.

Its mandate is that the Ministry is the competent authority in the protection of the environment in the Kingdom. Official and civil entities shall implement the legislations, instructions and decisions issued by the Ministry.

Strategic Objectives

1. To protect and conserve the ecosystems.
2. To prevent and reduce the negative impacts on the environment caused by pollution.
3. To raise public awareness and behaviour change on environmental protection.
4. To develop the capacities and anchoring the excellence culture.
5. To improve partnership with the private sector in priority sectors.

The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature

The Royal Society for The Conservation of Nature (RSCN) is an independent national non-governmental organization devoted to the conservation of Jordan's natural resources. Under the patronage of his Majesty the late King Hussein, RSCN was established in 1966 with His Majesty as Honorary President. RSCN has the mission of protecting and managing the natural resources of Jordan, for it is responsible for protecting wildlife and wild places. Thus, it is one of the few national organizations in the world with such kind of governance. RSCN’s most notable achievement is the establishment of 9 protected areas covering over 1200 square kilometers comprised of wild animals and plants, natural resources, and some of the finest natural landscapes in the country.

The Migratory Soaring Birds (MSB) Project

The migratory Soaring Birds Project is a 2-tranche project, aims to mainstream migratory soaring bird considerations into the productive sectors along the Rift Valley/Red Sea flyway that pose the greatest risk to the safe migration of these birds – principally hunting, energy, tourism development, agriculture and waste management.

The second tranche of this project builds on the successes of the first tranche, which established the Regional Flyway Facility (RFF) to act as a locus for conservation efforts related to MSBs along the flyway and to implement mainstreaming activities specifically aimed at MSBs. The focus of the mainstreaming has been to integrate flyway issues into existing national or donor-funded "vehicles" of reform or change management in the key sectors through the provision of technical tools, content, services and support.

A key aspect of the project is that it involves governments and civil society organizations to conserve MSBs and mainstream conservation measures. The MSB Project provides a platform that links the conservation efforts in the north and south with the flyway, which is a critical weak point in MSB conservation.

Need for National Information System for Energy Infrastructure Monitoring Program

Management Information Systems (MIS) are a key enabler for proper communication, allowing connection among different agencies that have a common interest -Conservation in this case –and encouraging standardization in documentation and communication protocols. MIS enables the analysis and comparison of conservation data, highlighting trends in real time and plugging them into both internal management plans and external stakeholders’ plans, which will consequently lead to proper monitoring and evaluation, if continuously updated. This system is critical for achieving lean management, tracking growth, and orchestrating protected area management.

The national need including that of RSCN interest is to build the MIS in order meet the priority of the GEF/UNPD project to establish a centralized online database that documents data regarding collision and electrocution of migratory soaring birds by energy infrastructures. Energy companies, especially wind power project companies will take part in reporting of collision incidents, and also migration data.The system will serve as a platform for decision-making, and also as a source of up-to-date knowledge on migratory soaring birds, which would help in identifying trends and ensure the effectiveness of the national safeguards that were originally set to ensure the conservation of these species based on regular monitoring.