The project focuses on preventing silitation of Lake Hawassa and promoting sustainable natural resources management thereby sustaining the benefits for the coming generation through enhancing land quality by undertaking biological and physical soil and water conservation measures; generating alternative income source for the direct project beneficiaries located in 3 kebeles; strengthening the community in environmental management and sustainable livelihood through capacity building and awareness creation; and establishing nursery site for vetiver grass which is known for absorbing the poison chemicals that come from factories, hospitals and city drainage canals and purify the water entering in to the lake and plant them around the lake. Through the different activities to be carried out, this project plans to combat environmental degradation and improve the environmental values of the project area as well as contribute towards food security and livelihoods of the community around Lake Hawassa through participatory, sustainable, and integrated natural resources management approach and sustain the benefits for the coming generation by the end of 2012. Its objective of contributing to the development of a coherent strategy to tackle poverty alleviation and food security in the Hawassa lake watershed through participatory natural resource management enables it to either directly or indirectly address the GEF?s three focal areas of land degradation, climate change and biodiversity loss through enhancing the water quality and vegetation cover around the embankment