Partnerships were established with 8 agencies specialized in placing paying volunteers for continuity beyond the GEF support. They were provided with marketing information, photos, and some received news and blogs for their websites. The partners have sent 21 participants to the program. 

We have identified clean water access as a key goal. Clean water access for humans, livestock, and wildlife will prevent wildlife-related injuries and deaths. In September 2012 IFAW conducted research and helped the county secure funding to rehabilitate the Northern Water Pipeline, which supplies water to communities living in the north of Amboseli. When the project is completed by the end of 2019, it is expected to reliably provide water to 300 homesteads, 3,000 people, and more than 6,000 herds of livestock. By rehabilitating the pipeline, the project ensures availability and sustainable management of clean water and sanitation for the Maasai community, and thus, reducing human-elephant conflict due to water access.

IFAW is increasing wildlife security in the Amboseli landscape by equipping community wildlife rangers with expertise and skills through training in human wildlife conflict mitigation and providing operation resources such as rations, salaries, GPS-equipment, uniforms and a patrol vehicle for use by the rangers.

IFAW also initiated an education scholarship to offer financial support to 60 students to pursue studies in high school, tertiary colleges and universities, and 50 community wildlife scouts. By providing education scholarships and wildlife ranger capacity building, IFAW ensures inclusive and equitable education and promotes lifelong learning opportunities and alternative livelihoods for the local community. 

IFAW is also working with local women to develop markets for income-generating activities such as beadwork and livestock management. By creating a boarding secondary school for girls and facilitating income generation among women, the project promotes gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls in Amboseli, thus, leaving no-one behind.

Amboseli National Park is home to some of Kenya’s largest elephant populations which depend on the surrounding community land for migration. In 2008, the land stakeholders recognized that the habitat loss threats, degradation, and fragmentation would lead to the loss of livelihoods and tourism revenue and opted to ensure the ecosystem’s sustainability. IFAW therefore partnered with relevant stakeholders to secure critical corridors and dispersal areas for elephants in community areas of the Amboseli landscape. To achieve this, IFAW implemented a multi-year commitment to secure 26,000 acres as wildlife migratory and dispersal land in the Amboseli landscape (the Kitenden Corridor, one of the last remaining elephant migratory corridors connecting Kenya and Tanzania).

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. 

In Phase 1, researchers review the literature for a comprehensive understanding of methods in visitor sampling, estimation, and monitoring in a range of settings. From this research, potential methods and the types of data they produce are identified, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of using each method at different scales. To examine which methods and indicators of visitation are most effective in a chosen NMS, all site attributes, visitor activities, and conditions (social, biophysical, regulatory, spatial, and temporal, etc.) of the sanctuary are inventoried. Researchers then determine which methods are potentially appropriate for that particular sanctuary, at a range of confidence levels (low to high). Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary will be used as an example to better understand NMS-COUNT throughout this solution.

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.

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.