EGI has engaged multiple and diverse actors, to support different and important aspects of the overall strategy. First, the local authorities were key as they provided access to the Protected Area to the EGI team, in times of lockdown and restricted access to transport and places. Second, the local and national medias supported the different activities, by organising talk show to share information and support education and awareness raising efforts. EGI was offered 16 opportunities, to create awareness on the relevance of promoting conservation amidst Covid-19 times in the country.  Finally, the Telecom company contributed to solving human – wildlife conflicts, establishing an environmental toll-free line, allowing communities to call EGI and the park rangers, if elephants for example come out of the park, with the risk of damaging their fields. The phone call allows for a quick response, where park rangers bring the elephants back in the Protected Area, avoiding the killing of these animals.

EGI partnered with Bunyoro and Bugungu cultural institutions to provide art skills to local people. 20 community groups, including women, youth and girls, formed different drama groups, that perform theatre plays, songs and dances, delivering strong messages, while providing entertainment for local communities. They are so successful that they are now hired at different occasions to perform, which provides also an income to these drama groups. They continued to perform during the second wave of Covid-19, in radio drama programs.

EGI conducted a rapid assessment on diversified livelihoods to find out what were local communities already doing.

Bee keeping came out as a common income generating activity, driven by a high demand in honey products. The households’ income has increased through the sale of honey and derived products, such as medicine, bee venom, propolis, wine, cosmetics. This is now cushioning them against climate change impact such as prolonged droughts and floods that have negative impacts on agriculture, hence able to sustain income and their livelihoods which is thus addressing the key drivers of poaching.

Another sector of intervention was agriculture. Local communities were trained to improve the resistance of their crops to climate change.

Bosque La Tigra owns 46 hectares of primary and secondary forests, as well as regeneration areas, as relicts of what used to be passion fruit plantations. Bosque La Tigra adjoins the Children Eternal Rainforest, Costa Rica’s biggest private reserve, with 23.000 hectares. For the Project, this location is a strategic element of the reserve work.

Bosque La Tigra has intended to foster the ecological connectivity of both reserves by conserving the forest and also, by actively restoring the regeneration areas of the reserve with native trees. For this purpose, the project designed a reforestation sequence for the regeneration areas. Eventually, the area will enter into an ecological succession process and foster ecological connectivity with the Children Eternal Rainforest.

At least 40 different species of native trees and bushes have been identified to plant in the regeneration areas. The Project has established a tree nursery that reproduces trees and seedlings from the same primary and secondary forests of the reserve and has a capacity for 700 seedlings and plants.

Between 2017 and 2020, a total of 4500 trees were planted. Every reforestation effort is supported by the voluntary work of students, companies’ employees, national and international tourists, and Bosque La Tigra staff.

In cooperation with Tsinghua University, Huangshan has developed a monitoring system covering various evaluation indicators of the three designations, issued monitoring reports every year, analyzed the work of the whole mountain and guided the future work plan.

We have improved our display and education system to make employees, communities and school students better understand the values and connections of UNESCO designations. We have launched various forms of educational activities, used our Wechat official account, geopark museum, interpretation boards, promotional materials and website to demonstrate the different values of Huangshan. 30 sessions of Huangshan Nature Lecture were held. 20 education articles about integrated management were published on Wechat account. Our English website and 40 interpretation boards were updated to include content about integrated management.

We’ve done two things for this part. The first is to research the relevance in value and protection objectives of the 3 UNESCO designations. In order to formulate the integrated management plan, 3 interdisciplinary studies were carried out, and 2 papers with Science Citation Index and 3 reports were published. The correlation between World Heritage and Global Geoparks is studied in order to formulate integrated management strategies.

Secondly, on the basis of value identification, we made a management plan and strategy. Considering that the objectives and evaluation criteria of these three designations guide our work to a great extent, in cooperation with China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), we have studied the relationship and difference between World Heritage and Global Geopark, integrated the indicators of the three designations, and clarified their similarities and differences, so as to facilitate the division of labor and cooperation between offices. At present, two relevant reports have been issued.

Good governance is the basis for follow-up work. In order to realize the integrated management of the three designations, we firstly need appropriate staff and working mechanism. To this end, we have formulated the Working Mechanism for Integration of the 3 UNESCO Designations of Huangshan (for trial implementation), which stipulates regular discussions among personnel responsible for each designation to seek common ground, while setting differences aside and sharing specific information relevant to each designation.

It enables us to collect all the resources of different departments and concentrate on completing common work.

• After coaching from Blue Ventures, association leaders from each village organized a meeting to discuss and identify the management strategy and the management measures based on the results of the assessment and the perceptions of the community.

• The meeting, chaired by associations and/or village leaders, is conducted under non-exclusive conditions and is attended by all fishers, women and men. First, the participants propose measures to be taken which are then voted on by a show of hands if there are many divergent ideas. It may happen fishers will postpone the meeting to reflect and discuss the decisions to be taken within their clan or family.

• In the presence of the fisheries administration, representatives of the Dina Committee, the Management Committee and the community-based patrollers, the local community validated the strategy and particularly the measures.

• In the future, these measures could be adapted based on the result of the implementation and participatory monitoring of landings.

• We analysed and interpreted the data collected during the monitoring, mapping and community meetings;

• During local community meetings, using visual approaches through imagery, projection of slideshows and discussions, the results and interpretations of the seagrass mapping and monitoring, as well as the perceptions of the status of the seagrass are presented to the community. With this the community receives feedback on the collected data and its interpretation. 

Even with all the other co-management mechanisms in place, fishers cannot adopt sustainable fishing practices if their economic vulnerability simply won’t allow them to. For this reason, Rare supports financial inclusion activities. This includes small-grant support for community enterprises. Some of these provide alternative income sources, like bakeries and hen/egg farming. Other enterprises, like fish processing and refrigeration services, enhance the income of fishing activities while decreasing the amount of waste and loss that drain fishers of income and communities of natural resources.
Rare also works with Savings Clubs, providing financial literacy training and creating a social setting in which those without bank accounts can access community-supported savings and small loans.
Together, these financial inclusion measures increase household income and financial resilience, decreasing fish workers’ vulnerability to economic shocks. This, in turn, supports sustainable fishing by allowing fishers to make decisions based on their long-term interests rather than short-term financial pressures that can drive overfishing.