Local | PANORAMA

Data feedback and interpretation

Data feedback to local community

Rindra Rasoloniriana

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.

Data feedback can help local community members to better understand their fishing activities and related habitats, to promote discussion among them and suggest appropriate measures;
Fishers participating in the training and data collection gave an overview of the data collection during the local community meeting, highlighting that they understand the goal and related approach. This was key in generating community enthusiasm and ownership.

The involvement of the communities in the different stages is essential. Therefore, in this stage related to the interpretation of results, they will be involved in a progressive manner as it requires a wider variety of skills.

Implementation

Local

Financial Inclusion

The accountant for the Bailaki savins group. Závora, Mozambique.

Jason Houston

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.

Social cohesion is a key factor in financial inclusion. Be it small enterprises collectively run by a group, or Savings Clubs that depend on active membership and collective action, financial inclusion and behavior adoption are predicated on the connections between people. Relatedly, effective financial inclusion implementation can only occur when program staff are engaged with community members to build trust, increase local capacity, and troubleshoot as issues arise.

One important lesson is that, as in many things, effort is not enough to make financial inclusion successful. Simply providing seed funding for microenterprises, or setting up a Savings Club, will not lead to meaningful and lasting financial change. However, if these beginnings are followed by trainings to build capacity and financial knowledge, and if community groups are empowered to learn from mistakes as they embark on new financial activities, financial inclusion can be truly powerful.

We also learned about the important overlap of financial inclusion and gender equity. Women in coastal Mozambican communities are often subject to economic and physical violence, at times prevented from earning money of their own or deciding how household income should be spent. Because Savings Clubs are majority women, they offer a unique opportunity for women to increase their economic power within households and across communities. This holds exciting opportunities, and we are working now to identify specific, targeted, and evidence-based strategies for bolstering women’s leadership and gender equity in Mozambican fisheries livelihoods.

Implementation

Local

Behavior Adoption Campaigns

This is an example of the Fish Forever Fishing Behaviors of Participating in Fisheries Management and Respecting Fishing Regulations.

Rare

Rare uses social marketing expertise to design behavior adoption campaigns, leveraging social science evidence to encourage sustainable fishing practices, empower local advocates, and build momentum for plans for community-managed fishing areas including no-take marine reserves. These campaigns are tailored to the local context, and can take the shape of celebratory events recognizing the importance of fishers, public messaging through billboards, radio and TV programming, SMS text campaigns, and more.

Effective behavior adoption campaigns require a strong understanding of the techniques evidenced by social science research to influence a “nudge,” shifting behaviors across a community and building lasting change. Rare has a Behavior and the Environment research center dedicated to understanding the science behind behavior change, and a Knowledge Hub dedicated to training Rare staff in concrete, proven strategies that can be applied to local contexts.

Adjusting to local contexts is crucial, and therefore important to have on-the-ground implementing staff and partners who build relationships, identify community leaders and advocates, and provide insight into the types of activities and messages likely to resonate with a given community. These strategies must be adaptable. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many in-person events became impossible to hold. In adjusting to these conditions and shifting restrictions, we were able to identify new strategies that in some cases brought even greater awareness and potential for behavior adoption: virtual gatherings that allowed more people to attend events; socially distanced and outdoors parade events; and the use of SMS texts and radio programs to reach hundreds of thousands of coastal Mozambicans. Finally, we learned important lessons about the importance of local leaders. Rare’s Coastal 500 initiative leverages commitments from mayors and other local officials, positioning them as a driving force in lasting change.

Implementation

Local

CMA+R networks

With support from the Blue Action Fund and SIDA/IUCN, Rare Mozambique, in partnership with coastal communities and government fisheries administration staff, is finalizing fisheries management plans including community managed access areas and recently-fi

Rare

Community-Managed Access and Reserve (CMA+R) areas are a spatial fisheries co-management tool in which communities and governments work together to identify locations for restricted fishing. Managed Access areas allow communities to set rules and restrictions on fishing, such as disallowing destructive gear, establishing seasonal fishing bans, or limiting the number of fishers allowed to fish in the area; and they enable communities to participate the surveillance and enforcement of these rules. Reserve areas are no-take zones where fishing communities agree to never fish, thereby protecting critical habitats and allowing fish stocks to recovery. The two types of protected area work together, allowing communities to sustainably fish from CMA areas adjacent to Reserves whose ecological integrity feed the fishery. “Networks” of multiple CMA+R areas across a coastline have the same positive feedback effect over a wider geography.

CMA+R areas must be legitimized through legal mechanisms that explicitly make this approach enforceable. Functional and formally recognized community management bodies must exist, and they must have institutional capacity to manage fisheries. Finally, both community management bodies and government partners must have access to accurate fisheries data that allows them to make appropriate decisions based on a clear understanding of the number of fishers, the amount of fish being caught, the income fishers are earning, and changes in these trends.

CMA+R design is a complex process, and must take into account ecological, social, and economic impact of fishing restrictions. Rare has found that using a larval dispersal model helps to determine the most ecologically advantageous areas for CMA+R designation, because larval dispersal shows those habitats where young fish are most likely to recruit, grow, and thereby replenish fisheries stocks. However, only repeated community consultation and extensive household surveys can reveal the social and economic concerns involved in CMA+R design, as well as the local ecological knowledge that larval models may overlook. Robust community participation is absolutely essential to establishing effective boundaries that people can and will support. For this reason, steady and intentional community engagement efforts are crucial to the successful design and implementation of CMA+R.

Implementation

Local

Enabling Policy

Enabling policy establishes the conditions that make fisheries co-management legal, designs of "Managed Access" areas with no-take reservers implementable, and data-based management functional.

This building block requires relationships with government at multiple scales, including national, provincial, and district levels. It also requires relationships with community-based institutions whose input can set policy priorities and whose functionality demonstrates value to decision makers in government. Finally, enabling policy is dependent on a clearly defined policy strategy that identifies key goals, evidence-based solutions, the stakeholders who will be most impacted by policy changes, and those best positioned to advocate and enact change.

Policy change is slow, and Rare has learned that government processes often work on their own timeframes regardless of project plans. This is true for the development of policy documents, the passage of laws, and the approval of submitted plans and proposals. In all cases, Rare found that steady and regular engagement with government partners was key for sustaining momentum. Likewise, Rare learned the importance of working simultaneously at multiple geographic scales. Enabling national legislation is essential for effective management, but it is insufficient for meaningful implementation. For this, Provincial and District policies are necessary, including the allocation of local budgets, the procedures of implementing agencies, and the active support of local elected officials. Finally, we found that an adaptive approach to policy work is the most effective strategy. Government priorities can shift quickly when elections and appointments bring new decision makers into the conversation, and when circumstances require the government’s immediate attention.

Annual monitoring of the seagrass beds

Seagrass monitoring

C3 Madagascar

We applied the Seagrass-Watch methodology, which consists in surveying seagrass beds with a quadrat, and help to assess the different species, their density and their health status

Results: For the sites surveyed, seagrass mean cover was from 7.5 % to 38.6%

Identification of dominant species
identification of dominant species and their average coverage

Annual monitoring should be maintained in order to know the state of the meadows and in order to take necessary measures in case of important degradations

Local

GIS mapping of seagrass meadows

Based on the survey results, we went to the seagrass areas where fishermen said they had observed dugongs. We dived to verify that seagrass meadows were in the location, and we took GIS points, in order to produce a more precise map of the ecosystem.

Identification of hotspots for seagrass beds and dugongs
Ground truthing by boat and snorkel

It is important and necessary to have a baseline map of the initial state (for reference) of the meadows in order to observe their evolution.

Local

Participatory approach

community consultation

C3 Madagascar

community interview

C3 Madagascar

We conducted a qualitative survey among fishing communities living in the area by using incidental sighting reports and the CMS short version questionnaire. The questions touched mostly upon their observations of dugongs when at sea. We asked what behaviours they had when spotting (were they eating, resting, dead, alive, bycaught,…?)

The answers to the questionnaires allowed us to draw an approximative map of their main habitats.

During studies on sea turtles, we conducted key informant interviews (by using a questionnaire too) to identify turtle nesting and feeding areas. This also allowed us to identify potential and important areas of seagrass beds.

We have been working in the area for a long time, and have established trustful relationships with the fishing communities.
Consultations with local communities have enabled us to discover traditional community practices on dugongs and their cultural significance. We produced a children's book about the dugong and sea turtle that shares informative information about the interaction between the species and its habitat.
No dead or captured dugongs have been recorded for over 10 years in Nosy Hara since C3 began its interventions.

Involving local communities in monitoring activities raises their awareness and involvement in resource conservation in general. Thanks to our community consultation, we identified one further hotspot we were unaware of previously.

Fishermen’s knowledge (especially the elders) is important information and gives an idea of the evolution or the level of change observed in the ecosystems.

Local

Strategic conservation of the Endangered Pepper-bark Tree (Warburgia salutaris) in South Africa.

Secure an additional 10,000 ha of critical habitat to protect Warburgia salutaris populations in the western Soutpansberg through expanding the Protected Area created in the first project, adding additional critical habitat, and creating a buffer around properties with W. salutaris present. Rehabilitate 20 hectares, and maintain 20 hectares, of prime W. salutaris habitat through invasive tree eradication along riparian areas within the protected area and neighbouring properties. Engage with key stakeholders (Traditional Health Practitioners (THPs), market operators and communities) to significantly increase cultivation of W. salutaris and reduce harvesting pressures on wild populations.

Helathy working relationships between different stakeholders, such as the protected areas and Traditional Health Practitioners.

This project is still at the planning phase.

Planning phase

Local

Subnational

Biodiversity Management Plan (BMP) for six threatened medicinal plants in Ehlanzeni District, Mpumalanga province, South Africa.

This management plan has been developed following the BMP-S norms and standards however in addition it also addresses the need of South African citizens for the long-term access to medicinal plant species for health care. The plan has been conducted for six medicinal plant species naturally occurring in Ehlanzeni District of Mpumalanga Province, Alepidea cordifolia, Bowiea volubilis, Dioscorea sylvatica, Haworthiopsis limifolia, Siphonochilus aethiopicus and Warburgia salutaris. It has been developed by a wide array of stakeholders including conservation authorities, horticulturists, researchers, law enforcers, users of traditional medicines, those involved in the traditional medicine value chain (traders, and Traditional Healer Practisioners) and Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) interested in supporting rural livelihoods.

This report details the outcomes of a process to collaboratively develop a Biodiversity Management Plan for the six species. Since many Traditional health practitioners’ (THP) in the area already grow certain medicinal plants in their home gardens, and many others are open to doing so. This plan explores options around cultivation as a possible tool for conserving and sustainably using these plants. Acceptance of cultivated medicinal plants depends on the species and its uses, as well as its socio-cultural significance within communities.

The BMP-S will be implemented in a complex and dynamic environment; therefore, over-arching principles will govern the successful overall implementation and provide context for future adaptive management.

Implementation

Local