María Magdalena Del Cid Torres, integrante del Comité de Microcuenca El Aguacate
IUCN @ Paul Aragón
Implementation of mangrove restoration EbA measures
Vigilancia comunitaria en el manglar (comunidad Garita Palmera)
IUCN @ Paul Aragón
Under the leadership of the Istatén Association and the El Aguacate Microbasin Committee, the following EbA measures were implemented in favour of local livelihoods and their resilience to climate change.
Hereby, communities implemented their own solutions to the problems they identified, under the motto: Paz River: Life, Refuge and Food.
The measures included:
- Unblocking and eliminating sediments from mangrove channels to allow fresh water to enter and restore optimum salinity levels.
- Reforestation of degraded mangrove areas (as a result of indiscriminate felling /livestock grazing).
- Community surveillance of key sites, with persons responsible assigned rotationally, in order to prevent mangrove felling and excessive species extraction, and ensure the protection of newly planted seedlings in reforested areas.
- Design and implementation of a Local Plan for Sustainable Use (PLAS) that regulates the extraction from the mangrove of fish, crustaceans (crabs and shrimp) and mammals (periods, quantities and practices), for sustainable species management.
These measures seek to increase and manage the breeding area of those species of greatest economic interest and relevance for food. In addition, mangrove restoration has improved protection against storms and waves.
Joint implementation together with community development associations facilitate decision-making and collective mangrove actions.
- Istatén Association comprises 3 communities (Garita Palmera, El Tamarindo, y Bola de Monte). It was created in 2011 with the purpose of community mangrove surveillance.
- Aguacate river Micro watershed Committee, created in 2012, works on environmental challenges with a basin approach. The group comprises 40 local representatives.
- It is key to support restoration efforts with biophysical studies that provide inputs for monitoring and evaluation and better decision-making regarding the intervention sites or the measures adopted, particularly the channel dredging and reforestation actions. It is also key to complement this with the empirical knowledge of the communities, generating a base of technical-scientific-social evidence that is pertinent and sustainable.