Project Detail

Energy Incentives for Conservation: Providing Fuelwood Alternatives to Enhance Mangrove Regeneration in the Yawri Bay Marine Protected Area (MPA)

The project seeks to reforest 160 ha of degraded mangrove sites within the Bumpe, Kargboro and Ribbi Creeks in Yawri Bay, conduct training for community practitioners and pilot a solar cooling technology for fishing communities to reduce the demand for mangroves within the Yawri Bay Marine Protected Area (MPA).

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Project Snapshot

Grantee:

Yawri Bay Community Development Organisation

Country:

Sierra Leone

Area Of Work:

Biodiversity

Operational Phase:

OP5-Y3 (Jul 13 - Jun 14)

Grant Amount:

US$ 29,300.00

Co-Financing Cash:

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 40,000.59

Project Number:

SLE/SGP/OP5/ CORE/BD/13/06/026

Start Date:

7/2013

End Date:

6/2014

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

Project Characteristics and Results

Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods

A critical output of the project is the construction of a solar-powered cooling room as an incentive for conservation and a sustainable livelihood for communities that depend on fishing and other coastal services. it will also significantly reduce the harvesting of mangrove wood for fuelwood and essentially, reduce the disaster and health risks.

Capacity - Building Component

The activities of the project will be divided into two phases. Phase one will include publicity, sensitization and awareness raising programmes on the importance of mangrove ecologies and organize community groups to select degraded sites. The second phase will focus on field training and rehabilitation/re-afforestation of selected degraded mangrove sites. The objective for doing this is to have a well-planned intervention strategy and ensure that knowledge is managed and consolidated at all cost. Indicators for the successful completion of project activities shall include a total of 400 community drivers trained, made knowledgeable in the roles and functions of mangrove ecosystems, 160 hectares of degraded mangrove sites rehabilitated and significant decrease in the rate of mangrove deforestation and increase in the control/regulation of mangrove harvesting for rice cultivation, salt production and fuel wood consumption as a linkage to the GEF/SGP Country Programme Strategy. Specific steps to be taken to ensure knowledge management is the production of user manuals and the physical demonstration and planting exercises that will be conducted during phase two of the project cycle.This will have been followed with sufficient sensitization meetings and awareness raising meetings and campaigns. Training manuals/pamphlets that have been prepared already will be multiplied for the 400 participants. This training will take place in the first (1st), second (2nd) and third (3rd) week of July, 2013. Participants will be selected taking into consideration the gender dimension of the direct and indirect beneficiaries. The Chairman, Coordinator and one Forestry Officer will be in charge of the trainings. Reports of such meetings will serve as indicator of the accomplishment of the training exercises. Two days will be devoted for the training in each of the eight (8) communities/villages. Visibility of the demonstration sites, sign posts, the healthy growth of propagates in the reforested sites added to the knowledge that will be gained during the sensitization sessions by both the direct and indirect beneficiaries will no doubt go a long way to ensure that beneficiaries manage and consolidate the gains that will be made by this project. Further, the introduction of solar refrigeration will serve as important initiative that will indeed be utilized as technology to reduce on the health impacts on fisher folks, especially women. The knowledge gained will no doubt be used for many generations and will improve on rural livelihood.

Policy Impact

The project will reinforce policy instruments in favour of biodiversity conservation and Marine Protected Areas. It will pioneer the formulation and application of community by-laws as a way of complementing existing procedures and policies at both community and national levels.

Notable Community Participation

The project will use a bottom ? top approach. With this perspective in mind YBCDO will divide the project into two phases. Community mobilization into groups and committees during meetings, willingness to participate in the training programmes and other social media switches like the football competition, and the contribution of lands and labour confirms the strong instrument embedded in this project to actualize community participation and benefits. Several meetings, engagements with stakeholder groups, women?s group, youths, football matches, and visible training sessions have been planned to ensure community involvement. 400 hundred participants in the entire Yawri Bay per meeting and training session will be actively involved in project related activities, be it in meetings, training and otherwise and this will spread over a six months period in total will attend. Thirdly, the classification of beneficiaries into direct and indirect beneficiaries will ensure a broad category of participation of every interest groups or persons involved in the harvesting of the resource, deriving short or long term monetary benefits. Wood cutters, fish mongers, traders, fisher folks, upland and swamp land farmers and the custodians of the land will all be involved the implementation of project activities. They will be involved in monitoring and evaluation as it will be through this that we will be able to generate a basis for assessing/understanding project impact. The above mentioned instrument allows for broad spectrum participation. YBCDO considers this an embedded concept and a plus but also considers the aspect of traditional, administrative and organizational ability and experience of its members to be major ingredients into the plan to ensure community participation.

Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment

The results produced during both phases will be communicated through radio discussions and community meetings. Publicity and the work of the town crier will form a very important instrument in communicating strategy, results and outcome and with the reports prepared the stakeholders will be kept abreast of the progress the project will be making. Visibility of the demonstration sites, sign posts, the healthy growth of propagates in the rehabilitated sites added to the knowledge that will be gained during the sensitization sessions by both the direct and indirect beneficiaries will no doubt go a long way to ensure that beneficiaries see the need to manage, consolidate the gains that will be made by this project and replicate the results in other sites within and outside the Yawri Bay MPA. The solar refrigeration component will also be replicated in other communities within the Yawri Bay as all of them depend on fishing as a livelihood. This technology is an initiative that will be spread gradually considering the cost but will serve as a best practice and an incentive for large scale conservation.

Gender Focus

Women are primary consumers of the mangrove resource for fish-smoking as a major livelihood activity, fuel wood for household cooking and they are the ones who suffer most from the inefficient technology used in most of these rural communities. They are among the primary drivers of environmental change in many rural economies. Without their involvement in the trade of mangrove resource, bush meat and other coastal resources, such trade will never thrive. With this perspective in mind a major component in the design and implementation of this project is the active involvement of women in the design and implementation of the project, especially the technology of solar refrigeration. The wood cutters are men who receive short term monetary gains from the harvesting and sale of the resource and thus their active involvement is of essence. Right from the organizational stage of YBDCO formation, the strategy has been to have women as members of the executive of the organization. A woman is the treasurer of the organization. A woman section chief is also a member of the executive. She is a master farmer and one who has a wealth of experience in community work. The direct link strategy also is to have women in all the committees. Women will be asked to head some committees especially in cases where the mammy queens are powerful enough to head such groups in their respective communities. Planning is a major component for the successful implementation of project activities and therefore such planning if it is to succeed must allow for all shades of opinion and from all categories to involved in all stages of planning and execution. Thus with the active involvement of all gender dimensions (men and women) in this proposed project right from the planning, design and implementation phases of project cycle, results will definitely be shared equitably.

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