Rangers are trained on the use of new SMART technology used to record patrol data. It is crucial to have well trained and equipped ranger teams to collect accurate data during their patrols.
Availability of funds
Access to technology and training of staff in using the technology
Individual rangers have different capacity building needs, we identified that there is a need to focus on individual rangers as well rather than just providing group training.
Issues of poisoning are sometimes sensitive and people might be reluctant to share much-needed information. To gain their trust, the implementer approached the local government authority and signed a Memorandum of Understanding which enables us to work in the area. Another engagement meeting was done with the local leadership (chiefs, headman) to discuss our intention in the area as a conservation organization. These steps increased our transparency as an honest organization. Building on these strong relations and trust with local communities is essential to ensure that they share such information.
Time and the human capacity for repeated visits to spend time in the communities to build long-standing relationships of trust over time were enabling factors.
Long-term investments with communities are needed, taking into recognition that they have different cultural and social issues happening in the communities. Effective communication is essential to build the trust of the local communities.
SAPA Assessment - Public Participation with Local Community
WWF-Kenya
SAPA Assessment - Public Participation with Local Institutions
WWF-Kenya
While the WIO-COMPAS programme aims at improving the individual capacity of MPA professionals, it also has a compounding effect on the management effectiveness of an MPA. Therefore, a prior assessment on the different aspects of MPA management effectiveness is necessary for monitoring, evaluation, learning and adaptive management purposes.
It is thus recommended that the MPA implementing this process commences with at least one of the following assessments
Combined, these highlight gaps in the different aspects of an MPA, including management, governance, ecological health, and social wellbeing. These gaps can be used to tailor the WIO-COMPAS training programme towards addressing the gaps identified.
Institutional Recognition and Support: The institution managing the MPA must see the necessity of assessing the management status of MPAs. This will ensure appropriate funding allocation in the long term to facilitate the continual capacity growth of the MPA.
Capacity to Conduct the Assessments: Internal capacity is desired to reduce costs. However, external expertise may be sourced where necessary where capacity is lacking. This may include working with partner institutions on a pro bono basis or using a consultant to conduct the entire assessment.
Prior planning: It is necessary to consider the entire process beforehand. This includes identifying the expertise/personnel needed, the duration for the exercise, and any costs associated with it. Additionally, it is important to allocate specific tasks to the individual assessment team members to ensure the objectives of the exercise are fully met in good time.
Public participation: Engaging the MPA staff alone in the assessments leads to positively skewed results. Consequently, it is necessary to acquire views from other stakeholders as well to get a more holistic picture of the management gaps that the MPA is facing. It will therefore be necessary to map out stakeholders, including their influence and interests in the MPA, before the assessments.
Application of a team of conservation dogs and dog-handlers
Conservation Dog Karetta finds a dead turtle
Turtle Foundation
Dogs have a highly developed sense of smell that enables them to locate hidden objects and follow traces of odorous objects. Thanks to their excellent ability to perceive acoustic and olfactory impressions, they are the ideal complement to humans in detecting difficult-to-see situations despite the darkness. Because of this profile, conservation dogs can provide valuable services in tracking and tracing poachers, for example. Dogs are also increasingly used for research, surveillance and protection purposes on sea turtle nesting beaches.
The training of the dog handlers and the conservation dogs is done by an expert dog trainer. The dog trainer spends at least 6 weeks per year on the project side and accompanies the team with online trainings.
The dogs' most important task is to search larger areas during beach patrols in order to detect unauthorised persons. Furthermore, they are specially trained to detect turtle meat and are able to find it in travellers' luggage at ports and airports, as well as in houses and cars. The dogs are also trained in mantrailing. This means that they are able to follow poachers who have left objects such as clothing, knives or ropes at the scene of a crime to which their scent adheres. This supports the local law enforcement authorities to track and prosecute poachers.
a dog trainer who will supervise the project on a regular and long-term basis
suitable dogs for which training as a conservation dog is possible
dog handlers, who have a special talent and interest in the care and training of the dogs
Specialized equipment which allows the team to provide the dogs with a good quality of life (food, medication, cooling blankets etc) and mobility (specially adapted car)
Dogs are living creatures that can also suffer injuries and become incapacitated. As we are already unable to use one dog as a working dog anymore, we are currently training 3 dogs in parallel in order to minimise the risk of failure.
We started accompanying the dog team with the drone. In flight training and tactical lessons, the rangers learned to radio the information generated by the aircraft to the team on the ground. This allowed us to significantly increase the safety of the dog team on the ground.
Apart from continuous training, the team also uses the sea turtle off-season to educate communities about our work and more broadly about sea turtles and environmental conservation. We organize events with schools and bring the dogs along to demonstrate their skills to the children. The dogs really capture the attention of children, which allows us to have important discussions about conservation while they interact with them.
Partnership Collaboration, Action Planning and monitoring progress:
Building up: Implementation and Monitoring—role of self-analysis, fundraising and tools
Implementation is the desire of any plan. It is the “boots on the ground” that counts. A portion of the equation is developing a protected area enforcement plan. Equally important is the capacity to implement. To determine ability to implement, an organization must carry out a self-analysis. The plan can outline fundraising needs: capacity needs, equipment and tools. Additionally, an organization can have a buildup period for implementation showing donors the full picture of desired impact.
Adequate financing and resources are needed for implementation and monitoring. If you have these then tracking and monitoring provides the results needed to show the benefit of an enforcement plan.
The enforcement strategy is a plan, implementation is determined by other factors such as resources. The plan can be a fundraising tool as it clearly outlines desired state and needs.
Enforcement involves more than just one organization. The entire process in development and implementation of an enforcement strategy must be participatory. Ultimately, stakeholders must be involved as they can have a positive or negative effect on outcomes. In this case local government agencies are crucial to be involved (i.e coast guard, police, military, government agencies). Equally important are community members of influence who can become stewards educating on legislation and the protected area rules ultimately to help reduce poaching. Additionally, the value of strong community support is the fact that they can become “eyes on the ground”.
All partners are to be equally valued in terms of input as this will affect implementation. Process of engagement and facilitation are key.
Ease of implementation of the enforcement plan is directly tied to having good partners and community support.
