AMA connects aquaculture with mangrove greenbelts along shorelines in estuaries. Greenbelts are nonexistent in most farms. In contrast to most silvo-aquaculture systems where mangroves are planted on dykes and in ponds, in AMA they are located outside the pond, where magroves contribute to climate mitigation. Mangroves on dykes and in ponds hamper pond maintenance and their litter and shade reduce productivity. Leaves decompose in ponds, providing feed sources to shrimp and cultured organisms. However excessive litter increases ammonia levels, decreases dissolved oxygen content, and reduces pond productivity. 

In AMA, the pond management is not hampered by leaves or shade, and benefits from an improved quality of inflowing water. A single farmer can practise AMA, but ideally all farmers along a canal improve the landscape. As farmers need to give up part of their pond area, which represents production potential, they are compensated with improvements in yield. Profits are obtained from the smaller pond, applying best practices from the Coastal Field Schools.

Conserving nature requires the involvement of many players, each having different goals, thus advances can only be made through partnerships. Here we have formed a very successful partnership between the provision of health care and conservation. This involves partnerships between the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the Ministry of Health, local government, Makerere University, Wilson Center, George Washington University, McGill University, Wildlife Conservation Society, and international donors.

The bushmeat trade is a large industry that is decimating many wildlife populations, even those in protected areas. It is estimated that up to 4 million tonnes of bushmeat are extracted each year from Central Africa alone ( the weight of ~5.7 million cattle).  For the people’s perspective the resources from parks allow them to feed their families and raise money to send children to school.

In the case of tropical health, most suffering is NOT caused by a lack of effective drugs or technology, rather it is due to the simple but critical lack of accessibility to health knowledge and services. In Uganda alone, 30% of all deaths among children between the ages of 2 and 4 are caused by malaria, a disease that could be easily treated or prevented, and 26% of children under the age of 5 are malnourished. These trends are most severe in remote regions where health services and education are extremely limited. Remote areas are also often home to protected areas for wildlife.  Through local clinics or mobile clinics, it is possible to provide critical health services to many people at a small cost per individual.  The number of people receiving benefits  are many times greater than other types of revenue sharing, such as ecotourism.

Over the past 10 years, we have focused on assessing the conservation status of endemic species and their rehabilitation in the wild. We have made a great effort to preserve it and plan for its sustainability. The most important thing that my team and I reached is that the surrounding community, users of resources, researchers, and decision-makers, whether in the site or in the government away from the place, the private sector, and students even the public can destroy everything we built during the previous years as a result of their ignorance of what we work and its importance to us and them. Dissemination of information is an external protection shield to ensure the sustainability of activities on the site. Continuous training and awareness activities should be in the target area and throughout the country in order to avoid destruction due to ignorance. Also, not documenting the traditional knowledge inherited by the local community is extremely dangerous and its loss is a waste of wealth that will cost the state and the world huge sums to discover again.

Education, awareness, and documentation, could reduce the current and future pressures and reduce the impact and the cost of recovery.

Combines solar solution to provide ligth and access to power and charge phones 

Build partnership to implement projects in biogas in niassa reserve and other reserves in Mozambique

Tapping into traditional knowledge and drawing upon the rich cultural traditions and biological heritage of local communities gives them a sense of pride in their heritage and enhances conservation outcomes. Documentation of the PBR by Sükhai village was an excellent entry point for enhanced conservation.

Having local champions is key to give thrust to the initiative & for the communities to own it. This also leads to rapid spread of such conservation successes & sustained motivation. Several deliberations were held initially with the communities of the three pilot villages in order to increase awareness about the impending ecological threat & the advantages of integrated approaches at the community & stakeholder level to manage the resources collectively and efficiently. During these deliberations, local champions were identified from each village. Though many interested individuals came forward, it was Mr Ivan Jimo in Sukhai village, Mr K. Vikuto Zhimomi in Ghukhuyi village and Mr Kakishe Muru and Mr Bokato Muru who were in constant touch with us & took keen interest in what the project had to offer and most importantly understood the reasons behind it.  We put them in touch with like minded leaders of the communities carrying out similar conservation activities in NorthEast India. There was transfer of knowledge when we invited other community leaders to the CCA as well as organised the travel of our local champions to witness other successfull case studies. We have also involved them on several online as well as offline platforms where they could speak about their conservation initiatives.

The elaboration of a plan for creating understanding and collaboration between researchers and decision-makers was a necessary tool to promote that scientific knowledge can have impacts on the policy domain. This plan entailed the following actions:

• Face-to-face or online meetings to formally introduce the research project to the protected area decision-makers and managers while using media (e.g., radio and press), and developing seminars to inform local residents and other stakeholders about the project;
• Invitation to decision-makers and managers to be involved in the project activities (e.g. local knowledge alliance, film and meetings);
• Tailoring the research activities to the decision-makers agenda to facilitate their participation;
• Organization of regular meetings, webinars and newsletters in local languages to inform about the project advances and findings;
• Development of workshops with decision-makers to analyze the applicability and usability of resulting tools and other research outcomes within the protected area;
• Dissemination of research reports in local language before academic article publications to validate the results;
• Writing posts in the national park’s blog and other related websites to disseminate research findings within the protected area channels.