Building Armenia's Biodiversity Evidence from the Ground Up

Eco-patrols, researchers and students gain biodiversity data management skills to inform national policy

In Armenia, the eco-patrols who work in the Lake Sevan basin notice things most people never will: a rare plant on a morning walk, a bird or animal passing through that nobody thought to write down.

For a long time, much of what they saw stayed in their heads and field notebooks, valuable to them but hard for anyone else to reach.

At the end of May 2026, a two-day training gave participants a different way to work and record their observations. It was one of the first activities delivered under Armenia's BES Solution Fund support, the catalytic seed fund provided to the country as the thirteenth to receive support through the Fund under the BES-Net project.

UNDP Armenia organized the training in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and with technical support from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (Armenia National Node) to mark the International Day for Biological Diversity. Armine Abrahamyan, who coordinates implementation of the project, served as the trainer and facilitator. Most participants already knew Armenia's ecosystems better than almost anyone, so the training focused on helping them record that knowledge in a form that the rest of the world can access and make use of.

The training served two distinct groups. On 26 May, eco-patrols from the Kotayk and Gegharkunik Regional Department gathered in Sevan for a session called "The Digital Key of Blue Sevan". They spent time focusing on the biodiversity of the Sevan basin, learned how to digitize and manage field records and went to the Norashen Reserve to test their new knowledge on the ground.

For the eco-patrols, the shift is particularly relevant. "Every day, I see species that have never been recorded, habitats that have never been mapped," said Poghos Martirosyan, Chief Eco-Patrol of the Sevan Section. Following the training, his teams began using iNaturalist to build, for the first time, a living and searchable record of species in the Norashen Reserve. “Eco-patrol teams now carry a formal monitoring responsibility, and this training arrived exactly when we needed it most. For an eco-patrol team, this is transformative: we are no longer just observers; we are data contributors to science and to conservation," he added.

UNDP Armenia organized the training in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and with technical support from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (Armenia National Node) to mark the International Day for Biological Diversity. Armine Abrahamyan, who coordinates implementation of the project, served as the trainer and facilitator. Most participants already knew Armenia's ecosystems better than almost anyone, so the training focused on helping them record that knowledge in a form that the rest of the world can access and make use of.

The training served two distinct groups. On 26 May, eco-patrols from the Kotayk and Gegharkunik Regional Department gathered in Sevan for a session called "The Digital Key of Blue Sevan". They spent time focusing on the biodiversity of the Sevan basin, learned how to digitize and manage field records and went to the Norashen Reserve to test their new knowledge on the ground.

For the eco-patrols, the shift is particularly relevant. "Every day, I see species that have never been recorded, habitats that have never been mapped," said Poghos Martirosyan, Chief Eco-Patrol of the Sevan Section. Following the training, his teams began using iNaturalist to build, for the first time, a living and searchable record of species in the Norashen Reserve. “Eco-patrol teams now carry a formal monitoring responsibility, and this training arrived exactly when we needed it most. For an eco-patrol team, this is transformative: we are no longer just observers; we are data contributors to science and to conservation," he added.

On 27 May, the training welcomed students and researchers for a second session, "From Nature to Byte: Student Bioblitz with iNaturalist". The session began in Yerevan and continued at the Reserve-Park Complex in Jrvezh, where participants collected and digitized data in the field.

Both days combined theoretical walkthroughs of the instruments in the classroom with practical field exercises. Participants were introduced to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility – an international database to which Armenia contributes as an associate member country – and learned how to turn a single plant sighting recorded on a phone into a public, searchable record.

For Sona Astvatsatryan, a biology and chemistry student at Khachatur Abovyan Armenian State Pedagogical University, the knowledge came together during fieldwork. "In the field, sharing discoveries with my group, I understood for the first time that science is not something you do alone," she said. She digitized more than 100 plant species on a trip to Sevaberd in the Kotayk region and now plans to incorporate iNaturalist and the skills she learned into her diploma research.

"The field work taught me more than any classroom ever could."

For Mariam Zakharyan, a junior researcher at the Armenian National Agrarian University, the training connected directly to her research on wild medicinal and aromatic plant biodiversity. She had spent years focusing her work on Armenia's wild plants and understood both their value and the importance of research in this area. For her, the training showed how a single tool can extend the value of an observation made in the field. "iNaturalist, I discovered, is far more than a species recognition app; it is a gateway to real biodiversity data management," she explained.

Learning to bring her field data into QGIS and map it spatially has changed how she approaches her research. What had the biggest impact on her, however, was the broader realization that biodiversity data is inseparable from the services ecosystems provide to people. "What we measure in the field today becomes the evidence that shapes conservation decisions tomorrow, and this training made me feel ready to contribute to that chain."

What Mariam described is exactly why such training matters beyond the days spent learning and the certificates awarded at the end. The practical skill of turning a field record into data in a shared and accessible system is the first link in a chain that can ultimately inform national decisions on biodiversity.

Armenia’s work under the BES Solution Fund, led by UNDP Armenia in collaboration  with the Ministry of Environment, will continue to contribute to the Fund’s mandate of translating biodiversity knowledge, including findings from assessments by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, into concrete national action on the ground. The work is also instrumental in feeding solid evidence into the implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP). 

A significant part of the country’s BES Solution Fund workplan focuses on assessing ecosystem services at pilot sites and finding solutions to value them in ways that can inform policy. None of this can happen without people who can gather reliable field data and introduce it into shared systems where it can be found and used. The assessments, valuations and evidence that will eventually inform national policy and the country’s NBSAP depend on the foundation these participants have begun to build in the field.

Building Armenia's Biodiversity Evidence from the Ground Up

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