Interaction between planning instruments

Norway does not fully include specific World Heritage provisions in its national legislation, but all WH sites are protected under the existing legal framework. However, a key challenge is to ensure that the management plan for World Heritage is recognized and implemented in all public management and urban development plans affecting or touching upon a WH site.

Following the approval by the WH Board, the Management Plan of Bryggen was approved by the Municipality of Bergen and Vestland County Council. This recognition states that the Management plan should be implemented by all public municipal and county authorities in their actions of maintenance of public infrastructure, new urban developments, use of public spaces, and in management or planning of cultural events. This recognition strengthens cultural heritage management in the municipality and the county and their commitment to uphold a strong focus on the protection of the WH property of Bryggen.

Bryggen WH site only covers a small geographical area within the city centre of Bergen. There are several large ongoing urban planning projects just outside the WH property. The political recognition of the management plan has become a tool for urban planning beyond the WH property.

The local WH management structure and its management plan have been accepted by both the Bergen Municipality and the County Council. This also gives the opportunity to the World Heritage Board to give its advice and recommendations to the Municipality and the County Council on the matter of protecting Bryggen’s OUV.

Having a WH property located inside a wider historic city centre means that urban planning decisions have the potential to affect the WH property and its OUV. Political recognition has made it easier to address the protection of the OUV and other heritage values as an integrated part of the wider urban planning process. It has increased the knowledge of WH as well as the importance to involve all concerned stakeholders.

This action aims to provide a framework for an improved and wider inclusion of all different departments involved in urban planning and public management in the next revision of the management plan of Bryggen.

Local World Heritage Management Structure

In 2012 Norway adopted a new national World Heritage policy to push for a more  effective implementation of the World Heritage Convention at a national, regional and local level. This includes recommendations for the establishment of local management structures able to enhance local capacities for management.
In 2018, a new structure was approved by all stakeholders and recognized at all levels. It  consists of:

  • a WH Board responsible for the  protection of Bryggen in accordance with WH requirements  and the management plan. It consists of 4 political members (2 from Vestland County Council,2 from the Municipality of Bergen) appointed for 4 years.
  • an Advisory Board strengthens cooperation between stakeholders in Bryggen with the aim of protecting its OUV and other heritage values. It consists of 10 members representing building owners, museums, university, tourism operators, cultural heritage agencies at local, regional and national level, and friends’ association.
  • a full time World Heritage Coordinator funded by the national government and employed at the Agency of Cultural Heritage Management, City of Bergen. It is the contact person for the WH site and responsible for stakeholder involvement and site management. 

There are two main factors that have enabled such a local WH heritage management structure:

  • The national policy for World Heritage which establishes  local structures and the appointment of a WH coordinator;
  • A long, ongoing and thorough process for stakeholder involvement was at the base of creating a structure that was accepted and formally recognized by all actors involved.

Developing a new structure for a local WH management requires acceptance by all stakeholders, and this needs to evolve and further develop over time. It is very much a learning-by-doing process. 
There is not one way of doing things, but it is a process that develops towards identifying the best way of organising management locally. Through the process one also might identify new stakeholders who should be included.

 

The aim is to coordinate activities, identify how each stakeholder is important for the overall management of World Heritage. However, there is no mandate to instruct either private stakeholders or public management. Hence, it is a continuous process to define the role and mandate of the local World Heritage management structure.

Strategic alliances for better implementation

To improve the organizational, productive, commercial and business conditions of POT and RAYEN, and thus be attractive to young people, in addition to the two projects implemented in Soconusco, Rainforest Alliance Mexico established alliances with local institutions, organizations and working groups, which formalized with collaboration agreements, annual work plans and under the modality of providing specialized services. The producer organizations POT and RAYEN have been strengthened through these alliances, making their work more attractive to young people. Since that year, CONANP has supported POTs with annual subsidy programs to improve sustainable production processes; CESAVE has implemented annual management plans to combat moniliasis and black spot, cocoa diseases that reduce production. With the strengthening of POT and RAYEN, young people showed interest in the coffee and cacao production chains, and in 2021 Rainforest Alliance Mexico began the process of training local managers. This was supported by POT and RAYEN, and together with CONANP and CESAVE promoted the participation of young people in the one-year training process, which INIFAP developed as the consulting agency responsible for the training.

  • Since 2016, the strategic allies have strengthened POT and RAYEN and incorporated into their work plans activities to give continuity to the processes promoted by Rainforest Alliance Mexico.

  • The allied institutions established work plans with producer organizations and gave continuity to the organizational, productive, commercial and business strengthening developed by RA Mexico.

  • The strategic allies were permanent promoters of the inclusion of young people in the processes of training local managers.

  • Producer organizations (POT and RAYEN) are attractive to young people because they have strengthened their productive, organizational, commercial and entrepreneurial processes; RAYEN and POT, together with CONANP and CESAVE, initiated and have maintained this process since 2016.

  • The close collaboration of the producer organizations with the institutions (INIFAP, CONANP and CESAVE) and the support they provide to the young people during and after the process generated and promoted by Rainforest Alliance Mexico, ensures the continuity of the process of training local managers.

  • With the formalization of partnerships in the territory and the development of annual work plans, it was guaranteed that during the year of the training process, there would be at least one person responsible for complying with the plans.

Projects, programs or initiatives that strengthen producers' cooperatives and respond to the interests of young people

Since 2018, the Rainforest Alliance Mexico has been implementing the following projects in the Soconusco region of the state of Chiapas. Sustainable Agriculture of Coffee and Cocoa, funded by Hivos (2018-2020) and Fundación Gigante (2018-2024) and APSyM, funded by USAID (2018-2023), with which organizational processes were improved (including leadership), production, harvest/post-harvest, commercial and business (improvement of marketing prices), communication and positioning at the local, regional and national level of the producer organizations RAYEN and POT, which together involve more than 170 people who produce coffee and cocoa under agroforestry systems. All of the above has been the basis for making the organizations more attractive for young people to join the production chains and seek opportunities for training, sharing experiences and generating self-employment opportunities for themselves. To support the interest of young people, the Rainforest Alliance Mexico designed work plans that included complementary activities between projects, which ensured the follow-up of both the strengthening of the organizations and the processes of education, training and integration of these young people into the organizations.

  1. Rainforest Alliance Mexico projects implemented in the Soconusco region have complementary activities, such as experience exchanges, that can be replicated or followed up by any of the projects.

  2. A coordinator in the region is familiar with the projects' work plans; this facilitates the identification of work groups and/or specific activities that make the work of each project more efficient, generate greater impact and respond to the interests of young people.

  1. It is vitally important to maintain a person in the region of implementation and to encourage constant communication with the producers, through field visits, phone calls or virtual meetings, to follow up on the development of the processes of strengthening the organizations. Without this constant communication, it is likely that the strategy of training local managers (LG) would not have emerged.

  2. The LG formation process is very long; it can take up to two years to consolidate the group. It should be sought that this training process should start as soon as the lead or umbrella project starts.

  3. The flexibility in the work plans and activities of the different projects or initiatives allowed the training process to be addressed from different angles and with different approaches.

  4. The level of desertion during the training program was 50%. In order to reduce this percentage during and after the training process of the LGs, it is key to develop together with the organizations a strategy to avoid desertion.

Cocoa and coffee producers' organization

The organizations Productores de Cacao Sostenible RAYEN and Productores Orgánicos del Tacaná (POT) were created in 2016, since then they are dedicated to the production and commercialization of fine aroma cacao and arabica coffee, respectively. Both are located in the Soconusco Region, in the state of Chiapas. Being constituted was important to promote and support young people in their training process as Local Managers (GL), as they created spaces for participation in which the leaders of both organizations contributed their experience in the training sessions. Since 2018, Rainforest Alliance Mexico, through the Sustainable Cocoa and Coffee Production ( Fundación Gigante and Hivos) and APSyM (USAID) projects, has provided them with support to strengthen their productive, organizational and marketing processes, thereby increasing their presence in the region and their visibility in national and international markets. This awakened the interest of some young people to begin their training process as LGs, who, in addition to committing themselves to their training, followed up on the good agricultural practices promoted by the organizations. In this way, the LGs had this space to provide technical assistance to people linked to RAYEN and POT.

  • Within the organizations, leaders were identified who motivated, supported, favored and became positively involved in the education and training of young people. This encouraged the participation of young people throughout the training process.

  • Without neglecting their obligations, the young people committed themselves to the different stages of training.

  • Facilities, especially in terms of mobility, were provided to young people to participate in the different stages of training.

  • The RAYEN youth live in an environment closer to the city, which logistically facilitated their participation in the trainings. The POT youth live in communities located on the Tacaná Volcano, which made it more difficult for them to participate in most of the sessions. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the social conditions of the participants.
  • The appropriation of the training process allowed the LGs to find an opportunity to generate economic income. In the case of RAYEN's LGs, their training enabled them to provide paid technical assistance and undertake the PENTACAO pilot project for the commercialization of chocolate bars. The RAYEN board provided the LGs with the basic equipment necessary for cocoa processing.
  • The cooperatives and their young people must keep in mind that the training process is a long one. The desertion of participants is always latent. Each story is different, and in the case of POT, shortly after completing their training, some young people decided to emigrate from their communities in search of other opportunities.
Partners

While APOPO is the leading organisation in training scent detection rats, we rely on our partners for a wide range of support. Without them, deploying scent detection rats would not be possible. Such partners range from local partners such as the Sokoine University of Agriculture, to international partners such as Mine Action Authorities, governments, donors, and specialised organisations.

For example, the wildlife detection project partners with the Endangered Wildlife Trust of South Africa. The project has been funded by a wide range of government donors such as

 

- The German Government (through the GIZ 'Partnership against Wildlife Crime in Africa and Asia' Global Program)

- The UNDP-GEF-USAID 'Reducing Maritime Trafficking of Wildlife between Africa and Asia' Project

- The UK 'Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund'

- The Wildlife Conservation Network

- The Pangolin Crisis Fund

- US Fish and Wildlife

 

We rely heavily on support from the Tanzanian Wildlife Management Authority (TAWA) for provision of training aids, and, recently, the support from the Dar es Salaam Joint Port Control Unit in order to conduct operational trials for illegal wildlife detection. 

Trust, collaboration, networking, knowledge exchange, integrity, supporting evidence, reporting, media and outreach. 

Building relationships takes time and trust. Open and honest dissemination of results, goals, and setbacks ensures that partners feel that they can trust your organisation. In addition, when dealing with governments and partners in countries other than your 'own', we have found it helpful to have a person who is familiar with the way the specific countries' governments work. An in-depth understanding of cultural values and customs can greatly enhance partnerships. In addition, expectations should be clearly communicated across all parties to avoid frustration and misunderstandings. 

Setting up procedure for financial contributions for management activities

In order for the NCA CR to be able to pay financial contributions to landowners, it was necessary to clarify compliance with budgetary rules. In order to ensure compliance with the budgetary rules, NCA CR built the entire system from scratch. The first step was to distinguish between commonly assigned management activities in nature conservation and to determine the usual costs for their implementation. Today, the results are unified in a code list of activities in nature conservation linked to costs of common management measures.

The most challanging and the crucial factor is to agree on costs of common management activities (e.g. cost of mowing 1 ha of a meadow, creating 1 m2 of a water pond, etc.) with the Ministry of Environment and with practical land managers.

Once the list of activities and associated costs of common management measures is agreed upon, it is quite easy to make annual updates, the signing of individual contracts is relatively fast and easy and the costs are fully transparent.

Human-Elephant Conflict mitigation through soft barriers protecting crop fields

In May 2023, the Elephants Alive (EA) team embarked on an Human-Elephant Conflict barrier implementation mission to the Namaacha Valley in Southern Mozambique. EA and Mozambique Wildlife Allience (MWA), as well as delegates from Save The Elephants (Kenya) and PAMS Foundation (Tanzania), came together in an inspirational cooperation exercise to implement a 4-way mitigation soft barrier to protect three crop fields. The fields had been identified through field research and GPS tracking data, as high-risk for elephant crop-raiding. One side of the fence was built by hanging beehives. As the hives start to become occupied with wild swarms, we will keep training local farmers on how to keep hives and colonies healthy, by assessing the frame structures and checking if the bees have enough pollen to produce honey. This knowledge will allow the farmers to increase both their crop production, protect crops from hungry elephants and supplement their income from honey sales. The second side of the fence was made up of metal strip fencing, the noise and sight of which has been proven to deter elephants from breaking into farmers’ fields. We set up the third side of the fence with chilli rags. The fourth side of the soft barrier fence was comprised of flashing lights, a technique successfully used in Botswana.

  • Each mitigation method is applied and maintained properly.
  • Following comprehensive beekeeping training and set-up of a monitoring system, the beehive fence will be maintained. 
  • Bee colonies have enough available resources to prevent colonies absconding from hives. 
  • Keen interest from the community. This was facilitated by the previous success of the Rapid Response Units in deterring elephant crop raiding.
  • Access to resources to maintain the soft barriers
  • Monitoring of elephant crop raiding incidents through field reports & GPS data

All barriers held up well despite two collared elephants coming close within the first month. On the 15th and 16th of June a bachelor herd broke in at the unoccupied beehives. They broke out at the chilli rags, as they had not been refreshed as taught. We have been communicating with the chief, who now sees the importance of the chilli rag refreshing routine. He has since collected more chilli and engine oil for reapplication. We have instructed that the smelly elephant repellent is hung at regular intervals of the beehive fences. The community has reported that the elephants avoid the flashing lights so on our next trip we will put flashing lights at regular intervals until the summer brings a greater occupancy of hives. Transport between the plots and supplies storage room is challenging. The straight-line distance is 5km but no vehicles are available. On our next trip, a watch tower will be erected closer to the plots, the base of which will be made into a storeroom. The responsible staff member from Mozambique Wildlife Alliance has now also acquired a driver’s licence so he can ferry supplies as the need arises.

Rapid Response Units as a short-term solution ensuring immediate physical and livelihood security

In order to address urgent HEC incidences, a Rapid Response Unit (RRU) has been established. The need for the RRU was justified due to the increasing pressure from district authorities, who do not have the capacity to mitigate HEC incidences. Consequently, higher levels of government are put under pressure to protect people and livelihoods, often resorting to lethal management of elephants. To avoid these lethal interventions, the role of the RRU is to (1) respond to HEC situations with near-immediate effect, (2) educate community members on how to behave around elephants and deploy HEC toolboxes more effectively, (3) systematically collect data on crop raiding incidences, mitigation methods deployed and elephant responses in order for us to develop an effective early warning system, and (4) disrupt elephant crop-raiding strategies through surprise intervention planning to ultimately contribute towards behavioural modification. The RRU is supported by the GPS collaring data when (1) identifying key human elephant conflict hotspots and (2) building crop raiding probability maps for the strategic deployment of long-term mitigation methods.

  • Sustainable funding & training of RRU & additional units if active across extended areas
  • Increased success rate over time to prevent disillusion and disappointment in methods applied
  • Optimised modes of transport and communication for RRU to be agile and quick to respond
  • Continued funding to replenish used deterrent tools
  • Continued support in training workshops and community ownership of mitigation strategies
  • Supporting infrastructure of watch towers and soft barriers
  • Behavioural modification in elephants as a result of successful deterrence 

Initially there was a sharp increase in the number of cases being reported at the end of the first year of operation of the RRU. After 18 months the impact of the RRU can be seen in 95% successful intervention proportion in the last six months compared to a 76% in the previous 12 months. With a 79% deterrence success rate in 140 interventions and a continued decrease in the percentage of HEC needing RRU intervention over the past 18 months, the RRU has proven its value to local farmers. They have also empowered local communities with safe and effective deterrence mechanisms to safely chase elephants away from their fields, which has meant that the percentage of conflict cases needing intervention by the RRU has dropped from 90% in the first 6 months of operation, to 24% by the 18th month of operation.

The RRU deterrence days have dramatically decreased as have the unsuccessful chases. An increase in used equipment and units of equipment can be ascribed to numerous training workshops where community members are empowered to adopt various non-lethal deterrence methods via the toolkits.

The Bocachico Festival!

In order to make visible and recognize the performance of good fishing practices and compliance with the Use Agreement between the community of Tumaradó and PNN Los Katíos, the Bocachico Festival was created, which in 2023 completes its XVI version. This is a traditional celebration that takes place in the community to promote the proper use of hydrobiological resources, especially bocachico; it is also carried out as an education and communication strategy aimed at organizational strengthening and lines of culture and governance.

This two-day event includes a variety of activities and contests for the whole community around the hydrobiological resource, such as catching the biggest fish, gastronomic dishes, the person who eats the most bocachico, canoeing, swimming, painting, trovas, weaving the net, fixing the fish, interviews with fishermen, among others. In 2020, diplomas were awarded to artisanal fishermen to honor their good work within the framework of the agreement.

-Good relationship between the community of Tumaradó and PNNC through the inclusion of cultural practices in the festival, which are important for the community.

-Valuation of fishing as a cultural activity.

-Compliance with actions related to this aspect within the framework of the agreement.

The cultural component can be strengthened through activities and the development of spaces such as the Bocachico Festival, thus benefiting the protected area by complying with the agreement regarding the measures implemented around fishing and the traditions of the local communities.