Capacity building for participatory MPA management
Viable economic alternatives
Partnership approach to monitoring
Enforcement programme
Eco-Tourism, Outreach, and Education
Facilitating tourism to conservation areas provides alternative sources of income to local community members by increasing tours and providing room and board to tourists and travel representatives. Also, increased tourism reduces extraction and/or unsustainable use of natural resources, including turtles and their habitats. This raises awareness and provides education on hawksbill turtles, oceans, and general environmental stewardship.
• Growing voluntourism sector, increasing market for outcome-oriented ecotourism.
• Importance of international marketing to recruit volunteers, increase project’s exposure, and ultimately raise more funds to expand work.
• Community festivals are an effective approach to raising awareness and cultivating youth stewardship.
Identifying new and important habitats for hawksbill turtles is vital to restoring their population. Visiting coastal communities and fishing ports to conduct interview surveys with local inhabitants and glean information on potentially important sites for hawksbills and conducting opportunistic in-water and beach monitoring leads to the discovery of important habitats.
• Increased community buy-in to hawksbill conservation for economic and social reasons has facilitated cooperative relationships with local people that result in valuable data.
• Hawksbills depend on highly vegetated coastlines for nesting.
• Mangroves provide critical habitat for hawksbills and can lead to declining populations if destroyed or fragmented.
Consistent use of tangle-nets, visual surveys, and hand captures provide valuable insights to hawksbill turtle biology, life history, residency times, growth rates, and dietary requirements of hawksbill turtles, as well as connectivity between nesting and foraging areas.
• Ability to work with local partners to secure transportation for cruises.
• Advanced geo-positioning technology and field scientific equipment has enabled more sophisticated research.
• Challenges associated with reconciling U.S. organizational policies regarding accounting procedures and insurance requirements with on-the-ground logistics and the provision of services to facilitate in-water monitoring.
Improvement and restoration of marine turtle habitats requires changes in laws and policies. Direct collaborative work with government institutions, non-profit organizations, and community members improves management and performance of protected areas, improves and restores habitats, provides greater benefits to marine turtles, and advances the natural habitats on which marine turtles depend.
• Increasing efforts/funding by international organizations (including U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation) to support endangered species conservation in developing nations.
• Ambitious proposals that depend on co-leadership from government fisheries science agencies are prone to political disruption.
Importance of developing legislation that effectively regulates coastal development so it does not negatively impact nesting and juvenile hawksbill behavior.
Group learning, peer feedback and peer-to-peer exchanges are embedded in the design of the MAR-Leadership program. This is coupled with ongoing virtual networking opportunities to enable the fellows to develop a support group for their current projects and their ongoing passion for the conservation of the Mesoamerican Reef. MAR Leadership seeks a consolidated, active MAR Leadership network where fellows collaborate among themselves and with experts, communities, governments, and academic institutions, regardless of borders. Forging connections across disciplines, organizations and geographical boundaries has been central to the MAR-Leadership mission.
Keeping fellows engaged, maintaining dynamic active social networks and offering benefits to alumni such as fellowships for courses or trainings, or publishing their work and news.
Develop strategies that support “fellow to fellow” interactions. Since many fellows use Facebook, recruit fellows to help with MAR-Leadership’s Facebook page.
Fellows have different amounts of time and energy based on changing life circumstances; offer different tiers of engagement that can tap everyone.
Behaviors and attitudes required for developing networks and organizational management need to be learned. It is important to coach staff and fellows in network principles and strong network behaviors.
Introducing social media tools help fellows mobilize support for their own work and build capacity with tools that can support their ongoing connectivity.
The MAR Leadership programme seeks to incubate new project ideas into projects with the potential for replication (scaling-up) along the Mesoamerican Reef Ecoregion. These projects are developed to show clear and measurable conservation impacts within a 3 - 5 year time horizon. Each cohort has a thematic focus linked to the conservation needs of the region. For example, in 2010 the fellows´ projects focused on coastal development and tourism; in 2011 on sustainable fisheries and establishment of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs); in 2012 on the establishment of a network of multifunctional marine reserves; in 2014 on integrated solid waste management and 2015 on conservation and economical valuation of mangrove ecosystem services.
Fellows commitment to implement their projects
Fellows’ organization support
Tapping the expertise of fellows and encouraging them to self-organize around learning and action projects (seeded with resources) help them develop their leadership skills.
Fellows’ projects are more likely to succeed if they are part of the work plan of their organization.
The capacity of local conservation leaders is strengthened so they become more effective in the design and implementation of their conservation projects in a manner that will serve fellows of this programme throughout their life time.
The MAR Leadership Program offers group and individual training:
During group workshops fellows are trained in project design and their leadership abilities are refined. Targeted competencies include the development of effective communication strategies, public speaking, negotiation and conflict resolution, time management and leadership in team management.
For individual training fellows have access to a small budget that can be used to participate in courses or technical diploma programs, intensive English or Spanish classes, visits to mentors, visits to pilot projects, internships in international organizations that deal with topics associated with the fellow’s project, as well as the production of market studies and data generation to bolster the feasibility of a given fellow’s project. These funds are expended according to a training plan designed with inputs from both the program’s staff and international experts.
A group of committed young fellows for each cohort
International experts and mentors that deliver training on project design and leadership skills
Financial resources for program’s operation
Seed funding for project launching
It proved helpful to involve a consultant who provides technical advice, co-facilitates trainings, and advices in project design. Specifically, the consultant helps to:
Research, review and distill the most up-to-date literature on the cohort´s topic, with an emphasis on the MAR region.
Based on research above, make recommendations to fine tune the program’s regional vision of success, and clearly defined objectives that are time-bound and measurable against baselines
Assist program staff in the development of a profile of the ideal fellow for the cohort and in selecting 12-14 fellows for the programme.
Lead the cohorts' leadership and project development training curriculum
Facilitate and identify resource people to deliver successful training workshops during the cohort cycle.
Provide mentoring and technical assistance to the fellows in the incubation of their project ideas to turn them into success.
