KENVO mobilized the community institutions (CFAs and WRUAs) into an organized group and built their capacity to engage in PES. Further, awareness on policies was raised among the community upstream. To strengthen the CFAs and the WRUAs, they were trained in all aspects related to PES – policies, practices, rights, responsibilities, fund management, monitoring and compliance. 

Community consultation engagements were held with CFAs and WRUAs and produced actions plans. The main objectives of the action plans was support land use practices that improve water quantity and quality and capacity build the local community to secure catchment restoration through water payment services scheme. 

1)      Conservation has become an increasingly popular career choice for young people all over the world. But many conservation organizations complain that young graduates don’t have the right attitude or the real-word skills. Nature Seychelles created the Conservation Boot Camp (CBC) on Cousin Island Special Reserve to test if the island could be used as a laboratory to equip young people with conservation skills, while at the same time use the fees paid as a sustainable funding mechanism for the MPA. The program was financially supported by the GEF from April 2016 to December 2019. The GEF project pays for a full time CBC Coordinator, equipment, and materials and other.  The coordinator manages the application process, and receives and integrates participants into the program.  A conservation manager leads on conservation work, while the Chief Warden manages all the logistics. The CBC is exclusive and takes a maximum of 6 persons per session and takes place the whole year. Each session lasts for 4 weeks and costs Euro 1000.00 (not including airfares and food). A 2 week program was been introduced due to demand. Nature Seychelles is a Private Training and Educational Institution under Seychelles law and a Certificate of Completion is awarded at the end of the training. 

Phase 2 brings together various agency managers, local stakeholders, and researchers to address a set of management objectives and associated monitoring needs. In this collaborative process, all stakeholders contribute their knowledge and perspectives on legal mandates, policies and factors that influence visitation and use within a specific sanctuary. Managers and local informants participate in a series of surveys and workshops that progress from a more broadly-based questionnaire to one with more specific questions based upon prior feedback. The expert panel discusses visitor trends and challenges specific to monitoring visitation at their site. The results of each iterative survey and workshop provide detailed insight into the current state of knowledge on visitation and level of confidence in the ways this information has been obtained. 

IUCN entered into the Dhamra port project because of concern about the port harming Olive Ridley turtles. As IUCN dug into the problems, however, it learned that the mortality rate of the turtles had already increased dramatically. A report prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India indicated that turtle mortality had increased from a few thousand a year in the early 1980s to more than 10,000 by the mid 1990s. Mechanized trawl fishing and gill net fishing were seen to be responsible for the mortalities.

Local community awareness regarding the value of the turtles was low. To address this, the IUCN team engaged in community sensitizing activities, including creative educational programs, as well as traditional outreach. DPCL also established a community training centre so that local villagers could develop new skills.

IUCN also identified that the use of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) could be helpful in reducing turtle mortality due to trawl fishing, one of the biggest problems in the areas. The devices weren’t new to fishers in the Dhamra area – Indian NGOs and scientists had tested them with the fishers in the past – but they weren’t being used. The IUCN DPCL team consulted extensively with local fishing cooperative officers and communities to better understand the issues.

Dredging, recognized as a serious threat to the marine turtles, was identified by IUCN as a priority.  IUCN, with experts from the Species Survival Commission’s Marine Turtle Specialist Group designed and developed a dredging protocol to be followed during port operations. These included installing turtle deflectors on all dredger drag-heads to help ensure turtles were not pulled into the dredger. Trained observers were assigned to all dredgers to monitor this process. These observers would check screens on inflow and overflow pipes on a 24/7 basis. These measures (deflectors, screens, and human observers) were put in place to ensure that the dredging was “turtle friendly”. Such measures were the first to have been put in place in the history of dredging activities in India.

Lighting was the second major threat identified because excess glare is known to distract turtle hatchlings as they instinctively move towards brightly lit areas and away from the sea. For this, the IUCN Commission experts provided specific guidelines for the port’s lighting plan, which was adopted by the port authorities. IUCN further supported Tata Steel in identifying the right design for these lights. Today, Dhamra Port is the first and only port in India to have installed “turtle friendly” lighting.

Between 2015 and 2019, the Direction du Parc National de Toubkal (DPNT) has developed data collection sheets for monitoring i) infractions linked to tourism activities, and ii) wildlife.

These are paper sheets given to local eco-guards to fill in during their field surveys, illustrate with photographs and then hand over to the Toubkal National Park Zone Managers (PNTb): from these sheets, the latter then draw up quarterly reports and location maps for the DPNT, which feed into a database.

From the end of October 2019, the DPNT plans to improve and facilitate data collection for local eco-guards: the Toubkal National Park ecotourism officer, in collaboration with the scientific monitoring officer and the PNTb zone managers, has adapted the CyberTracker software for this protected area in order to develop an easy-to-use mobile application for monitoring in the Toubkal National Park. Training in the use of this application is planned in the near future for the PNTb's eco-guards.

The local eco-guards recruited via an outsourced service had a perfect knowledge of the high mountains and their inhabitants. However, they had gaps in their knowledge of the identification of certain fauna species, and had never carried out monitoring according to a pre-established data collection protocol.

It was therefore essential for them to benefit from training sessions in this area: theoretical sessions in the classroom to familiarize themselves with species identification and data collection sheets, and to start handling technical equipment such as GPS and digital cameras (01 day/session), and practical sessions in the heart of the Toubkal National Park (PNTb) to assess the beneficiaries' physical abilities and knowledge of the mountain territory, and to apply what they had learned during the theoretical sessions (06 days/practical session).

In order to develop innovate financing tools for the proposed protected sites, it was important to thoroughly understand the profiles of the islands’ clientele , and to develop mechanisms that would not be seen as extorting more money from clients who were already paying hefty sums for their holidays on these private islands.

Extensive discussions about various funding options needed to be held at different management levels. e.g. the islands owners, the hotel managers, and marketing personnel in order to gauge an understanding of what products could be developed for the clients of these resorts. The resorts offer different holiday packages – from a five-star all-inclusive holiday package to a four-star sustainable island concept. 

Therefore, options were trialed for adoption or adaption, or for dismissal. One such example was the tree planting activity allowing guests to commemorate important life events, thereby becoming involved in the protection of the environment. 

The idea proved to be a popular and in-demand finance option on Denis Island, and it was assumed to also work well on North Island. However the scheme did not get approval, because North Island offers all-inclusive holiday packages, and so tree planting could not be charged.

At the project inception, neither Mtirala or Machakhela National Parks were supported by any locally-based NGO’s or support groups. However, such an organization could play an important role in: promoting the PAs, building local community and PA collaboration, and addressing their development priorities.

Based on an assessment of the international and national experience and particularly the existing experience of other PA’s in Georgia, the project supported the establishment and functional capacity building of the Mtirala and Machakhela PAs Friends Association (FA).

The major risk identified was that many such organizations are heavily supported by donors and once such support ceases, they face problems to remain financially viable. Thus, a major focus of support was on building capacity of the FA to be financially sustainable in the long run via a strategy that ensures long-term core funding from reliable sources.

The Mtirala and Machakhela FA was established in 2016 and has been undertaking a variety of activities to build PA/Local Community relationships and collaboration, ranging from Junior and Community Ranger Programs, organization of ecological visits by schools, tourism promotion and application/implementation of local development projects with donor funds.

Appropriate tourism development is an important means and opportunity for Protected areas (PA) and communities located adjacent to them to meet their aims and needs.

In the case of the Protected Areas, the aims are:

- to provide a recreational service to visitors

- to increase public awareness and understanding of the importance of conservation

- to generate incomes that enhance management and strengthen sustainable financing for that purpose.

In the case of local communities, the aim is to increase sustainable incomes, improve and diversify livelihoods.

In both cases, the emphasis is on “appropriate” tourism, i.e. tourism that does not overwhelm or degrade the fundamental tourism attraction (i.e. the pristine nature and cultural landscape). In the PA’s case, there is also an emphasis on educational and awareness aims. This requires that tourism development is carefully planned and focuses on maximizing overall longterm benefits, rather than short term financial benefits.

In this context, project's support concentrated initially on developing a sound strategic vision for the Ajara PA system as a whole and individual colchic forest PAs in particular. On this basis, appropriate tourism development was supported on the ground both in the new Machakhela NP and generally in the valley.