Community awareness, participation and stewardship
Local communities are engaged in the early planning stages to build awareness and to ensure full participation. This includes discussing restoration objectives, protection plans, and co-management principles. Community members receive trainings, participate in hands-on development of small-scale community nurseries, and assist in the monitoring process by observing tidal exchange, measuring seedling recruitment, and conducting time lapse photo monitoring. Project managers connect the community with the responsible government agency to gain their support and sign an agreement if required.
• Interest and willingness of the community;
• Clear future social benefits (goods and services) for the community;
• Suitable land-tenure or land-tenure that will not be a jeopardising factor;
• Appropriate funding, if possible long-term financing (> 3 years).
Without strong community participation from the project’s inception, stewardship may not be achieved, putting the project at risk. Also, good collaboration between the community, the responsible government agencies and the NGO is a basis for the success of the project from inception onwards. Linking restoration objectives with local livelihoods is also important for engaging community members.
One success factor critical to the planning phase is a secured land-tenure, which sometimes consumes more project time and resources than finding and securing restoration sites. Persons holding tenure of abandoned shrimp ponds usually do not want the area restored back to mangroves, as the government may take back the land title once the mangrove ecosystem is restored.