Vegetation and habitats conservation in Talesh Mountains Protected Areas

Talesh Mountains are the highest mountain range in the Western Caspian Sea. There are two Protected Areas in Talesh mountains, Lisar and Agh-dagh Protected Areas. The areas lies between Irano-Turanian and Euro-Siberian phytochorion, the vegetation were collected by 240 releves, focusing on altitudes between 2100 and 3300 m a.s.l., and following the traditional sampling strategy in the Braun-Blanquet approach. For classification of vegetation groups, the data matrix of species data was created. The matrix was subjected to a numerical classification using TWINSPAN. In the most parts of the mountain, there are alpine and subalpine habitats, like snowbed, scree, Thorn-chushion. This study represents main dominant plant, main plant group and most endangered endemic plants for each habitats. Human activities such as over grassing, road building, harvesting medicinal and aromatic plants and also growth of villages and tourism have led to the destruction of the vegetation and habitats. Effective conservation initiatives are urgently required

Keywords:

conservation , IUCN , Aq-dagh , Lissar , Iran