Objectives
An important issue is the participation of population in self-management of desertification problems as oversanding, deforestation, lack of green zones around the villages, or salinisation. Thus the desertification group in each country has developed a concept of first investigations related to participation issues. Main objectives for these works had been both to research participation issues in some villages and general social issues of people living in the Caspian desertification region. Both issues were investigated in field trip with extensive interviews within some families including overnight stays. General outcomes and recommendations from these field trips will cover:

• Social structure of rural areas
• Family and gender issues
• Intergroup relations and community stratification
• Labor and Income situation of households
• Use of water, electricity, gas and firewood
• Daily and seasonal living conditions
• Historical environmental development and trend analysis
• Spatial environmental analysis.

General outcomes for some rural village in the Caspian as in Absheron Peninsula (Azerbaijan), Chernije Zemli (Russian Federation), Atyrau Region and Aktau-Ozen Region (both Kazakhstan), Celeken and Bekdash Region (Turkmenistan) and Ghumishan (Islamic Republic Iran) are expected for October 2001. Some examples as the following chart to self-assessment of income situation of households show the approach:

Field Observations

Comparing to Chernije Zemli (Russian Federation) people in Ghumishan (Islamic Republic Iran) assessed that 20% of the people of their villages are poor, 79% are slightly wealthy and only 1 % seems to be rich from rural standpoint. In the rural village Masasir (20 km to Baku, Azerbaijan) about 40-50 % of the monthly household expenses will be spent for food, 10-15% for gas, electricity and water, 15-20% for clothes mainly of their school children (the average of family members is now 4,8) and 3-5% for fodder of their cattle, sheep and camels.