Securing sufficient funds for a multi-purpose EbA solution
As this solution serves various goals and meets several objectives, it was possible to secure sufficient funding from diverse parties, domains and funding bodies to cover the entire implementation of the project. Innovative financing approaches can also act as ‘self-sustaining’ and generate funds during the course of the project to fund some of the foreseen activities.
Given that the solution serves various goals, funding was able to be secured from a range of parties, sectors and sources. In the case of the creation of Lake Phoenix this included funding for water management from the water board; funding for ecology from the ecological funding program by the federal state; funding for urban development from etc. The water board, for instance, provided the amount of money that was already budgeted for the construction of a flood retention basin.
Establishing the diverse benefits provided by a solution is an important step in the planning process, as it highlights the various sectors and stakeholders who can potentially be involved in and benefit from the solution. Drawing attention to the potential benefits, and underlying this with a sound scientific evidence base with which to approach these parties, can facilitate the successful generation of funds from a range of sources.
Population trend and environmental influence model
This building block is very useful to understand the population trend and how environmental factors take a part and influence this tendency. Modification and adaptation of existing population models which describe trends as well as the relationship between the parental stock size and newborns make it possible to understand how the environment influences sea lion population growth rates and abundance. These model approach helps to understand whether a given sea lion population is influenced or not by environmental variables. The approach ultimately allows deciding if one or several sea lion populations could be good indicators of environmental change.
1. Information about population: total number of individuals; numbers of pups; numbers of females. 2. Availability of environmental variables. All the time series of environmental variables were fetched from internet specialized public sites.
Developing these models helped me to understand that population trend is a very complex phenomenon: -It could be not directly related with the population trend but could work in synergy with other events. -El Niño event isn’t the only or main event that influences the population trend and recruitment process. - Not all the colonies are influenced by the same environmental change; a few are not responsive of the variables tested. - The environmental conditions seem to influence more the survival rates than fecundity. It is very important to have sufficient information about population and apply the rates of other similar animals just in extreme necessity because these trends are very specific for species.
Formative Research
During the planning phase extensive formative research informs the Social Marketing, as well as the Technical Assistance components of a campaign. Research sets the baselines that allow the assessment of social and conservation impacts following a campaign. Qualitative research (e.g. focus groups, observation, in-depth interviews) is geared towards understanding target audience opinions, feelings, concerns and perceived benefits of current as well as desired management practices. Qualitative research is about creating a casual conversation with and between participants to establish a comfortable relationship, and to reveal underlying information unobtainable through quantitative research. Quantitative research surveys capture specific answers to specific questions to describe demography, identify media preferences, and assess the current state of knowledge, attitude, communication and readiness of target audiences regarding a certain behavior change. Both components ultimately inform campaign decisions like objectives, respective activities, materials, and messages for both Social Marketing and Technical Assistance.
• Training on qualitative and quantitative research methods. • Generic qualitative research guide/procedure to support researcher in preparing and during research rounds. • Templates to facilitate qualitative research analyses. • Quantitative research (i.e. survey), following best practices for survey question design to avoid bias in respondent answers. • Committed base of volunteers to support survey implementation. • Software to process and analyze quantitative data.
Qualitative research techniques (e.g., focus group and in-depth interviews) geared towards understanding the target audience opinions, feelings and concerns regarding a certain behavior change are essential to create casual conversations for participants. This enables creating an environment of trust in which fishers feel comfortable expressing what they really think instead of expressing what others want to hear. The latter would make data barely reliable. Surveys that are built on qualitative research results tend to better inform campaign strategies, making them more aligned with campaign goals and objectives. It is essential to avoid setbacks when it comes to survey implementation, and detailed planning based on sample sizes and human resources is necessary. In that sense, building strong relationships with a committed group of campaign volunteers to support this task is essential.
Climate adaptation scenarios
Climate impact hypotheses were translated into quantitative relationships and data layers for use in the InVEST ecosystem service models. Adaptation strategies were selected based on outcomes for ecosystem service provisioning with a set of four climate adaptation scenarios tested. In selecting the most appropriate adaptation strategies, we drew on existing research with stakeholders in Belize that identified the ‘best options’ for sustainable development, adaptation, and mitigation of climate change in Belize, and looked at these under three management scenarios.
• Existing strategies from climate development-partner funded efforts were the basis for discussion. The strategies had a focus on linkages between climate adaptation, mitigation and sustainable development (triple-wins) in the coastal zone. • Literature review and focus group discussions were used to refine the list of strategies, to identify measures that are: feasible for Placencia to undertake; to map and value; and clearly responsive to climate impacts.
In some cases, there were insufficient data or understanding of the nature of the relationships between the climate change variable and ecosystem service to model robustly. As a result, we were only able to model climate impacts for two out of the four service models: lobster fishery and coastal protection. Limited time and human capacity restricted our ability to model sea level rise impacts on coastline retreat at a fine scale (e.g. more precise modeling of mangrove distribution and land loss needs finer resolution bathymetry data). The resolution of existing bathymetry data for Belize is quite poor, as it is for much of the region, and the limited timeframe of this work (10 months) precluded the pre-processing of bathymetry data. We got spatial results about changes in ecosystem services from climate change and development factors but we could not identify particular groups most vulnerable to these changes due to data gaps.
Insertion in the community
Building trust between MarViva and the Community Councils of each community has taken more than four years before the development of the Communication Collective. Creating an association between the Collective and the Foundation has been based on the respect for the interests, decisions and role of the Community Councils. This partnership has allowed the insertion of the Foundation in the communities where it is positively seen as a strategic partner. This integration has been strengthened by successful previous processes where communities have perceived the benefits of partnership and the "fair play" by the Foundation.
Establish personal relationships with community leaders to meet and discuss one to one the vision of these community leaders. Create participatory methods in making decisions that develop an acceptance and identification with the decisions taken.
Invest time to create a strong partnership with communities is essential before achieving successful experiences. This relationship requires time and constant interactions with community leaders. It is important to establish clear rules for this interaction from the very beginning. The respect by the Foundation for community decisions and the avoidance of taking the leading role were elements that helped create that trust.
Awareness Raising
The importance of nature conservation is brought out to the local community - including the tourist sector. Awareness raising campaigns are conducted to transform knowledge, values, skills and attitudes towards sustainable tourism development. Information is disseminated via videos, brochures, press releases and organised flash mobs.
Community participation of the community, resources for public relations in the alliances, formulation of clear messages.
Because the efforts have been achieved with the participation of very diverse sectors and institutions it is necessary that all the members have similar understanding regarding the terms used; all the messages communicated have to contain the same information, no matter who is communicating.
Monitoring and evaluation
Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) are vital components of every Pride campaign, without which assessment of the effectiveness of the intervention cannot be conducted. M&E takes place in every component of the Theory of Change (please refer to the building block 'Theory of Change' for a brief description of each component). Monitoring keeps score on how effectively capacities are built, how effectively social marketing efforts lead to changes in behavior, and if those behavior changes lead to desired conservation outcomes. Monitoring basically tracks every component of the ToC. M&E of knowledge, attitude, interpersonal communications and behavior change is based on pre and post campaign surveys of the fishers, while threat reduction and conservation results use specific protocols validated by experts.
• Having a local monitoring partner or consultant is key to develop timely baseline data and monitor threat reduction and conservation results. • As with any project or program, having adequate and sufficient funding is key. Teams may rely on existing human, equipment, facilities, and financial capacities to reduce costs. • Sites with long term tradition of monitoring are better suited to produce a solid baseline of biological monitoring indicators.
An important lesson related to biological monitoring is when there is the possibility of having a two person team for each campaign, a Campaign Manager (CM) and a Fisheries Fellow (FF). This arrangement allows for one person to concentrate on the fisheries technical aspects, including the necessary time for biological monitoring. The level of involvement of the FF in the monitoring component depends on his/her personal inclination towards science. There are examples where the FF devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to conducting monitoring and analyzing data, while others did not participate at all. This could improve with a clearer definition of the FF’s role in regards to biological monitoring. Having a person dedicated to monitoring in Rare’s team ensured all fisheries campaigns had baseline and post campaign impact data.
Informed behavior change
After the first full year of data gathering, Trident Systems, the company that developed the observation tool, was asked to produce data sets based on the SNA1 Agreement including how many vessels moved on because they were catching undersized snapper and what volumes of small snapper were being caught by each fishing method. Specific information is confidential to each fisher, but an overall analysis is made public. This is the first time in New Zealand that inshore fin fishers can see the effect of their fishing practices on collective industry catching allocations. They start to recognize how they personally can contribute to sustainability of the snapper stock by changing their practices. New Zealand fisheries are data rich yet it is rarely used to build awareness and facilitate discussions between fishers to bring about change. Fishers involved in science projects are keener to understand the results of the work, are reviewing data and asking questions in a way that scientists are not used to. This review process is challenging and most often face-to-face. Scientists are reporting data to other scientists, but they are also bringing together fishers and providing advice and learnings on how to change fishing practices.
• the government supported this initiative by being open to considering cameras as a cost effective substitute to human observers • local fisher leaders were willing to support and defend decisions such as installing cameras on vessels • both the scientists and the software innovators were prepared to look at what fishers wanted rather than just improving the products already available
Maintaining the confidentiality of fisher’s information and data is crucial.
Climate impact hypotheses
Stakeholders were consulted to obtain feedback on relative vulnerabilities. Other related information was also sourced via desktop research and review of journal articles. Three sectors that directly benefit from ecosystem service/function were considered in the modeling: the tourism industry (recreation); the spiny lobster fishing industry (food); and coastal property owners (protection). Climate impacts of concern to those stakeholder groups were discussed. Analysis of the direct and indirect influence of climate factors on ecosystem services/habitats was conducted.
• Effective stakeholder dialogues and outreach initiatives • Partnerships provided the support needed for effective implementation of the project’s activities
The scenarios helped us to effectively communicate climate influence and impacts as well as the scientific thinking behind the process and approach for addressing impacts to inform policy and decision-making on climate change. Scenarios played a critical role in raising awareness on climate change and in engaging organizations and stakeholders in the need to adapt. As thought about moving forward in replicating this type of effort, we have realized that it is not enough to simply make climate change scenarios available. Their provision must be accompanied by ongoing guidance and support to ensure widespread and appropriate uptake. Second, on-going dialogue between those providing scenarios and the communities using them is fundamental to constructively meet the challenges associated with delivering credible scenarios that balance user requirements and expectations with what the science can deliver.
Multi-stakeholder Workshops
In participatory workshops, common objectives as well as individual roles and responsibilities are identified. This helps to strengthen coordination and cooperation among the key stakeholder groups including government officials, representatives of private enterprise, academia, civil society organisations and tourism service providers.
• Community participation • Government committment • Strategic alliances • Reformed legislation
A cross-sectoral, transparent and constant communicationis of key importance.