Training Program

The transformation of meaningful learning comes precisely when the elements of knowledge and contact with nature converge for the participants, including 4 key values: 1) Building character, 2) Order, 3) Respect and 4) Unity or Solidarity.

 

Each activity, each expedition brings with it the strengthening of the participants' learning, with sensory and emotional exercises.

In the case of the Karla Wheelock Foundation, it was she who developed all the programs, planned the logistics of each trip, created the agreements and sought funding. In order to do so, she was also in an ongoing learning process where every day she had to become even more professional.

The process gave rise to a learning model, where the children learned, the trainers learned from the children, the parents learned from their children, the school learned from its students and the program learned with each expedition in order to improve its performance.

 

 

Call for Action

Launch a call to public schools in Mexico City for five children and one student to propose an environmental project for their schools.

Agreements with the Ministry of Education that would allow the issuance of a call for action in public schools.

1. Both children and teachers were not clear about what it means to undertake an environmental project, so this had to be taken into consideration.

 

2. The work to keep the government involved is complex because it must be managed with each governmental change and that becomes a very tiring endeavour, so we are now looking to create a legal initiative where children must prepare an environmental project in their schools in order to graduate.

Reflection period and integrating outcomes

The purpose of the reflection period and integration of project outcomes is to continually disseminate findings from this research to residents, businesses, government agencies, scientists, and other relevant decision-makers who are shaping the future of protected areas, those in the Denali region. In turn, the research team is building knowledge of how residents are discussing and reacting to pressures related to rapid social, economic, and landscape change, and this knowledge is being reported back to stakeholders. This cyclical process of co-creation is occurring throughout the project. The medium for reflection is taking a variety of forms, particularly through webinars, in-depth discussions with the local executive committee, and reports provided to decision-makers. The reflection period will culminate in a film about communities in the Denali region, as well as wrap-up workshops at the end of the project. These workshops are being framed as spaces for civic discovery whereby residents become aware of the diverse values for places that they do (and do not) share with others in the region. They are encouraged to recognize potential opportunities for growth in ways that take advantage of shared thought, directed actions and channeled support for preserving the desired character of places.

All previous phases of this project are instrumental in supporting this building block. The mixed-methods databases from this project provide the empirical basis for engaging and reflecting on lessons learned from the research process. Existing relationships across an array of stakeholders is also important for encouraging participation and maximizing impacts that emerge from the study.

Major lessons learned throughout the project include: (1) Trust building is an ever-present set of actions that needs continual attention. (2) There is a shift towards replacing the dichotomy of use versus preservation, by the complexity of environmental sustainability, industrial tourism, and landscape change. (3) Charting a course for inclusive conservation will require understanding processes that reduce tensions across stakeholder groups. (4) Moving away from generalized conflict, to clarify specific points of conflict and appreciate points of agreement. 

Generando voluntad política y apoyo social

La cooperación transfronteriza para la PEM en la Macaronesia europea sólo es posible si se da un paso más allá del ámbito científico.

 

En este sentido, se pretende, por un lado, difundir tanto los resultados obtenidos en el proyecto como la información de relevancia para la cooperación transfronteriza a la población interesada en los temas marinos y costeros de la región. Esto se consigue mediante la elaboración y difusión de cuatro boletines informativos que aportan información sobre la ordenación del espacio marino, en general, y sobre la realidad socio-ecológica de la Macaronesia europea, en particular.

 

Por otro lado, es necesario mostrar a los responsables de la toma de decisiones, de los tres archipiélagos y de los dos estados, las principales recomendaciones para avanzar en la cooperación transfronteriza para la PEM en la Macaronesia europea. Para ello, se elaboraron recomendaciones políticas. Este documento propone la consolidación del concepto de Océano Macaronésico Europeo, un espacio común de cooperación en el que los Estados miembros (y terceros países) se esfuerzan por alcanzar una visión compartida y dar así respuestas eficaces a los retos marítimos a los que se enfrentan.

  • La Macaronesia europea comparte relaciones ecológicas, sociales, culturales y económicas. Esto permite encontrar canales comunes de entendimiento para la cooperación transfronteriza en el medio marino.
  • Todos los Estados miembros que comparten una cuenca marítima deben cooperar para garantizar que los planes marinos sean coherentes entre sí y funcionales a través de las fronteras.
  • España y Portugal no han aprobado aún sus planes espaciales marinos, siendo una oportunidad para diseñar, en una fase temprana, herramientas de cooperación.

La filosofía de integración que subyace en el proyecto de la Unión Europea es transferible a la región marina de la Macaronesia europea. Por lo tanto, esto debe estimular los esfuerzos de colaboración para la adopción de una gestión más amplia e integral de un territorio que ya es compartido (europeo).

 

Es necesario considerar la importancia de generar la suficiente voluntad política y social para que la cooperación transfronteriza se convierta en un eje transversal e institucionalizado dentro de los procesos de planificación del espacio marino en la Macaronesia europea.

 

Debido a la lejanía de los tres archipiélagos, los boletines se difunden casi exclusivamente de forma digital, lo que dificulta el acceso a la información de la población socialmente más vulnerable. Por ello, es necesario reforzar los mecanismos de difusión y divulgación en los tres archipiélagos.

Multi stakeholder Forums

CEJAD realized the value of engagement is very critical in getting various stakeholders with different needs to realign consequently unlocking resources as well as forge alliances for meaningful participatory development.

Forums were held in the community to ensure that public participation is at the heart of the marine plastic waste as well as getting community groups to own the problem and take charge.

  • Alliance: Establishing alliances has contributed to ensure the perpetuity of the plastics value chain as well as the development of marketing platforms for plastic waste products.
  • Stakeholder engagement:  Establishing platforms and fora is very critical in getting various stakeholders with different needs to realign and get buy-in from partners consequently unlocking resources as well as forge alliances for meaningful participatory development. Forums were held in the community to ensure that public participation is at the heart of development.
  • Proper documentation must be followed through with action points that are all rounded as well as approved by all to enhance accountability.
  • Amplify and provide visibility for impactful members so as they can be champions and ambassadors for plastic waste management.
  • Link the training to sources funding for the sustainability of the ventures for desired outcomes as well as continuous mentorships and coaching sessions including table banking.
  • Cooperation must be at the heart of the engagement to facilitate waste management initiatives.

 

 

4. Internal and external communication.

Communication enables an understanding of the objectives and the actions that have been taken to achieve adoption of the principles that sustain the program, by all the members of the organization and the local community. It is a way to highlight the effort made and the policies implemented in order to ensure the sustainability of the productive processes. Communication within the organization allows dissemination of the vision, values and actions put in place to improve environmental performance, the commitment to the community and the quality of the products offered External communication specifically allows dissemination of the organization's efforts to improve its productive and environmental performance to the local community, buyers, suppliers and any other social actor relevant to their interests. 

Having smooth internal communication mechanisms between the company and the staff; and the presence of external local/regional media interested in production/environment topics.

1- Due to internal communication, employees develop a sense of appreciation and commitment towards the actions carried out by the company, which are then transferred to their family and social environments. 
2- The alliance between the company and civil society in communication matters, increases the credibility of messages, especially if the communication comes from civil society.
3- The positive response of people to communication processes increases trust in what has been done and the company's commitment.
 

Adaptive Management

BFD has started using SMART as an adaptive management tool in the Sundarbans which is among the key potential benefits of the approach.

Presentation of reports to SMART enforcement committee helped the decision makers of BFD to plan patrols based on data queries and interpretations from actual SMART reports. This with on-board mentoring observations helped BFD decision makers to take further management decisions.

BFD is using SMART patrol reports and assess how patrol plans have been adapted based on the results of previous patrols and how effective these adaptations have been in increasing the effectiveness of SMART patrols as evidenced by the area covered, number of arrests and successful prosecutions of criminals committing serious wildlife, fisheries and forest crimes such as poaching and poison fishing; confiscations of boats, weapons, snares and traps, and wildlife carcasses and body parts; and trends (increasing, stable or decreasing) in sighting rates of key threatened wildlife species.

Awareness of managers on adaptive management and role of SMART data on that front

BFD need to enhance capacities of managers to play with SMART data and project/forecast changes/trends and incorporate forward looking measures towards conservation

Partnerships

Partnerships have been very key in getting stakeholder buy-in as well as ownership on the project. The proposition in the partnerships aimed to decentralize the ownership of the eco-points, spur collections rates and develop a seamless sustainable plastic waste value chain. 

 

During the last 12 months, 3R established various partnerships with different stakeholders. One of the partnerships was with an NGO, ParCo, whereby they established two eco-points, to receive and buy plastic waste from the local community waste pickers. 

Continuous stakeholder engagement was cited as an important platform in ironing out issues among partners involved in the implementation of the project

 

 

  • Planning collaboratively is imperative in harnessing synergies as well as allocating responsibility going forward.
  • Co-creation exercises informed the gaps and opportunities to strengthen aspects of the waste value chain as well as providing the assistance that each stakeholder needed.
  • A partnership is only but a means. Continuous communication is vital to keep partnerships strong and robust to deliver their objectives.
Peer Training

We recognized the need to build leadership for effective MPA management from within, and ownership and leadership of the approaches co-developed.

 

We convened a group of 18 regional and global experts to train the most engaged MPA practitioners across 3 nations as peer trainers in evidence-based (adaptive) management. The expert team first broke down adaptive management into 3 core components: marine monitoring, data summarization and management, and strategic decision making. We then invited applications from MPA staff and engaged community members in 3 national MPA systems (Kenya, Tanzania, and Seychelles) to become peer trainers in one of the areas, as we recognized that no one staff could likely train in all three.

 

We received 60 applications and invited 30 MPA members to participate in the peer trainer training in Seychelles in August 2019.  We developed a 5-day training course. We did 2-days of joint sessions, then each group had 3-days in their individual core areas. The final day was testing in the core concepts.  Of the 30 practitioners who participated, 11 passed as peer trainers or assistant peer trainers.

 

These peer trainers are now working in their respective nations to continue improving MPA management.

Existing leaders in the approaches through past in-country training events willing to become peer trainers.

 

Willingness of experts to volunteer their time to develop and lead the training.

 

 

Building ownership and leadership is key.

 

5-days probably not enough time for a peer trainer course - ideally, there would be three 5-day courses with time to practice skills in between, but this requires more funding than was available.

Ongoing monitoring

To ensuire the solution worked, we monitored nesting and hatchling dispersal for three consecutive seasons following beach rehabilitation, and determined that there were no impacts to nesting sea turtles or emerging hatchlings.

We had several years of baseline data with whcih to compare data post-construction. We also had access to the beach and the support of the reglator in conducting the monitoring activities.

Baseline data are crucial to determine impacts. Often industries develop infrastructure in the abence of basline data and this then precludes an assessment of impacts.