Project Detail

Protecting sea turtles for development of community-based eco-tourism in Hon Cau marine protected area, Binh Thuan province

Sea Turtle is an invaluable species and being listed as of extinction danger by IUCN. Besides Con Dao Island, Hon Cau marine protected area (MPA) of Binh Thuan province is known as a home for sea turtle laying. The MPA covers the area of 12,500ha with the appearance of particular marine eco-systems such as coral reef, sea grass. In recent years, there has been a remarkable decrease of sea turtles on the island for breeding. The result for this came from such inducement as catching turtles for commercial purpose, the appearance of more people on the island, more ships mooring, etc. From this context, the project ?Protecting sea turtles for development of community-based eco-tourism in Hon Cau marine protected area, Binh Thuan province? was developed in order to involve local community in preventing growing threats posed to sea turtle laying beaches at Hon Cau MPA, contributing to the conservation of biodiversity and natural resources for future ecotourism development.
- Specific Objective 1: Reduce local fishermen?s unintentional fishing practices which are causes for sea turtle deaths along their migratory routes to the island for breeding;
- Specific Objective 2: Manage the island?s coastal habitats, safely protect local sea turtle laying beaches, and enhance the rate of turtle egg hatching in the breeding season.
- Specific Objective 3: To raise awareness among the local community of the threats to sea turtles and their laying and nesting beaches, and dignify the local people's role in participating in conservation activities. Enhancing the participation of stakeholders in the protection of sea turtles.
- Specific Objective 4: Propose solutions to the improvement of new livelihoods based on the values of sea turtle and biodiversity resources conservation at Hon Cau MPA.
- Specific Objective 5: To conduct the project performance progress review, evaluation of the project outcomes , and sharing of experiences and lessons learned and replication of good practices

Expected Outcomes:
- Outcome 1: current status and information about sea turtles returning to the island for breeding shall be collected, and the mother turtles should be timely rescued in case of incident; Reduce the number of entangled sea turtles slaughtered or sold for meat, and forbid local fishermen from fishing with explosives, lighting, and trawlers within and around the MPA.
- Outcome 2: To ensure that there is no factors in the turtle laying beaches surroundings that affect their laying process during the breeding season; Ensure turtle individuals that return to the island for laying to be timely detected, and their nesting sites to be safely protected, and properly managed, incubated and hatched.
- Outcome 3: The fisherman community?s and local stakeholders? knowledge and awareness of of sea turtles and their protection will be better improved; a coordination mechanism will be developed to effectively implement the protection of sea turtles; Ensure that the gathering of turtle eggs for food and/or sale by local people will be reduced; an action plan for sea turtle protection will be developed and implemented with the participation of the community and local stakeholders.
- Outcome 4: To develop a model of livelihood for improving fishermen?s income by providing catering and transportation services for visitors to MPA; and an eco-tourism program combined with turtle breeding sightseeing tours will be developed and provided through local tour operators;
- Output 5: The project performance progress review meeting shall be held with the participation of line departments and sectors, relevant agencies and representatives from local communities; The meeting will evaluate the protection of sea turtles in the locality and share lessons learned with other MPAs; The meeting also will evaluate the model for the ecotourism program combined with turtle breeding sightseeing tours taken place at Hon Cau MPA, and develop a plan for local tourism development in order to scale up the services in terms of quantities and forms across the local community

Project Snapshot

Grantee:

Farmers' Association of Tuy Phong district

Country:

Viet nam

Area Of Work:

Biodiversity

Operational Phase:

OP5 (Extended Period)

Grant Amount:

US$ 46,709.00

Co-Financing Cash:

US$ 4,583.00

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 27,133.00

Project Number:

VNM/SGP/OP5/Y4/STAR/2015/06

Start Date:

12/2015

End Date:

12/2017

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

Project Characteristics and Results

Policy Influence

The conservation of marine turtle species is stipulated in many legal documents of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The development of policies that encourage the community participating in biodiversity conservation in general and the conservation of marine turtles in particular are also specified in many legal documents. The results obtained and the limits that still exist in the implementation of the project?s demonstration models at Tuy Phong district, Binh Thuan province should provide lessons in the policy development process to encourage the fishers?community involving in the work of conservation, and first of all the implementation of the National Action Plan for Marine Turtle Conservation approved by MARD?s Decision 811. To effectively protect the marine turtles, it is necessary to have a mechanism that controls a close coordination among the line departments. The results gained by the project have proved that the establishment such bodies as a team of volunteers, a marine turtle rescue team, and a network of collaborators in the community; the signing of the agreement on a mechanism to coordinate the concerned parties; the development of the operational regulations of the community?s credit fund?are all the realization of the pilot orientations for policies so as to create financial foundation and socialize the resources from the community for marine conservation. These are practical results of a demonstration model at community level that constitutes a lesson from experience for local and central management agencies to study and continue to finalize the system of policies to push up the work of community based biodiversity and marine turtle conservation.

Project sustainability

Through the implementation of the project activities, the awareness of marine turtle conservation has been better improved among the fishers? community and local management agencies; moreover, the conservation of marine turtles has not only been realized in the enhanced awareness but also in practical actions i.e. a team of volunteers established by the fishers? community to protect marine turtles; reports on the marine turtles that are in need of rescue often given by local fishermen to the competent authorities, and directly involving in rescuing marine turtles and patrolling in defense of their nesting beaches. This constitutes the most important basis for the ensuring of the sustainability and the replicability of the demonstration model. The leaders of Tuy Phong DPC and Binh Thuan PPC have confirmed that the follow-up activities would continue upon the end of the project. In reality, the project activities have also been the priority ones of the committees. The development of the Hon Cau MPA into a tourist attraction is one of the present local orientations toward ecotourism development Besides, some aspects of the project activities have been included in a proposed project on provincial ecotourism development that the Binh Thuan DARD has requested other line departments for comments. It is expected that these activities shall possibly be continued after the approval of this project.

Project Results

Objective 1: Minimize the risk of death for sea turtles by unintentional fishing activities on their migratory route to the island for nesting:

Key results:
1. 400 local peoples from 8 communes around marine protected areas trained of threats to sea turtles, their nesting and habitats and the role of sea turtles in cultural and socio-economic life of the fishers? community.
2. 500 fishermen?s consent/commitment to stop dumping garbage, nylon bags and broken nets into the sea in order to protect sea turtles from eating or death, and release sea turtles if they are trapped by the net.
3. A team of eight collaborators established in eight communes. The team has performed a task of collecting baseline data and promptly rescuing sea turtles in emergencies. Besides, the team also has actively raised public awareness of marine turtle conservation among those who are likely to directly and/or indirectly cause adverse impacts on sea turtles. A simple database was developed for updating data on sea turtles.
4. The collection of wastes on the beach and broken fishing nets and tools dumped in the sea by diving, was organized.
5. These activities are of positive implications for the management and conservation of marine turtles in Hon Cau MPA. The project has been seen as a very effective catalyst for the implementation of some of the activities in Hon Cau MPA, including the signing of operational regulations with local management units. Although these coordinated activities took place in Hon Cau MPA before the project was implemented, the project?s activities have improved the working relation between the relevant agencies to enhance the management and conservation of sea turtles.
6. One of great impacts produced by this component is the establishment of a team of marine conservation collaborators whose salary is paid from the provincial budget by Hon Cau MPA in addition to the team of voluntary collaborators in eight communes of Tuy Phong district. Thus the project has optimized the use of donor?s funding by catalyzing a local financial contribution to the conservation of marine turtles.

Objective 2: Manage island habitats, protect nesting areas and improve turtle hatching rate during breeding season.
Key results:
1. Procedures for sea turtle rescue and management developed
2. 30 officials and volunteers trained in the rescue of sea turtles and moving turtle? nests to breeding sites.
3. There are two hatching areas established in two sites on Hon Cau Island to receive all nests moved in.
4. Result from three diving surveys around Hon Cau Island indicated that corals, sea anemones and sea grass beds grow well, and fish, shrimp, crab, squid etc., have been increasing and diversifying in coral reefs.

Objective 3: Promote community?s awareness of threats to sea turtles, their habitats and nesting areas, improve the role of local people in conservation activities, and strengthen the participation of stakeholders in marine turtle protection.
Key results
1. Awareness of marine turtles protection as well as promoting local people?s role in conservation was significantly improved
2. Public awareness activities using the province?s matching fund have been actively implemented including three television reports broadcast on the Binh Thuan provincial and district television stations; 15 - 20 news / articles published in the Binh Thuan newspaper, the bulletin of the General Directorate of Aquatic Fisheries and others; 40 radio programs broadcast in eight communes / towns and a contest launched and awards given to pupils ...
3. A group of volunteers was established in Phuoc The commune and the project has in collaboration with IUCN programs, funded activities implemented by the collaborators.
4. Waste collection activities implemented by some of collaborators in Phuoc The fishers? community.

Objective 4: Propose a new livelihood improvement solution based on marine turtle and biodiversity conservation values at Hon Cau MPA.
Key results
A revolving credit fund developed to support those fishermen who have pledged to shift to jobs with less impacts on sea turtles from fishing. The first round of 21 households was lend nearly 15,000USD, each household borrowed max 600USD.

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