Analysis and identification of actors/stakeholder:
In order to understand the stakeholders in the project area, all actors in the district who are capable of supporting the establishment of LMMAs were ranked by capacity to contribute to its implementation. The ranking was from 1 to 3 points (1 – low, 2 – medium and 3 – high). Only the stakeholders that had a score of 3 points were selected, namely, government, Community Fisheries Council, fishermen, fisherwomen, influential members (community and religious leaders) and alternative income generating activities groups.
Stakeholders were then engaged through the SAGE/IMET methodologies, through the introduction and background workshops and through partaking in the assessments themselves.
Profile of the study sites:
Characterization of the study site which includes the type of habitat we are protecting, the species, the type of reserve we are implementing which are temporary and permanent reserve (temporary for short-lived species, in this case octopus and for the purpose of increasing household income, and permanent reserve or restocking for biodiversity conservation for generations to come, but the same may cause overflow of fish into the area where fishing is allowed) dimensions of the reserves, legal framework.
Key enabling factors in this building block include involving project team members who have a strong and in-depth understanding of the communities and landscapes within which we work to ensure that all stakeholders are identified and then ranked correctly. Additionally, it is important to have a wide representation of team members to have an increased range of opinions on stakeholders’ capacity to implement LMMAs and how best to engage them.
In order to ensure smooth data collection among the focus groups and stakeholders it is important to (i) have clear questions and make sure the issues were well perceived by everyone, (ii) take into account the time required for translations when necessary, and (iii) enable the expression the divergence of opinion. Furthermore, the multi-stakeholders consultation (featuring the presentation of IMET and SAGE assessments’ results) needed to be repeated several times to get buy-in from all stakeholders for elaborating the enhancement plans to improve the LMMA co-management plans.
