New Research Provides Support for Community-led Conservation
A new up-and-coming framework has been identified as a solution to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss and reduce rural socio-economic hardships. A recent evaluation of our approach reveals Planet Indonesia’s dedication to community-led conservation can both achieve and catalyze multi-dimensional outcomes across social, environmental, and economic scales.
The village of Sungai Nibung
Located on the coast of the world’s 3rd largest island, Borneo, the village of Sungai Nibung in the Kubu Raya Regency is surrounded by dense beautiful mangrove forest and is only accessible by boat. The village gained tenure of 3058 ha of mangrove forest in 2017, but is nested in a greater landscape of nearly 78,000 ha of pristine carbon-rich mangrove forests. The 1,745 people living in the village have little to no access to government services, electricity, fresh clean water, among other basic amenities. Furthermore, 90% of individuals are dependent on the local fishery for sustaining their livelihoods. It is coastal communities, like Sungai Nibung, that are directly dependent on their surrounding ecosystems which underpin local livelihoods.
The Conservation Cooperative Approach
Planet Indonesia creates village-led partnerships through provisions of community-based services, outlined by community members themselves, to help reduce socio-economic inequalities while improving mangrove conservation and natural resource management practices.
The overall approach can be summarized in four major steps: (i) securing rights for communities, (ii) creating the enabling conditions for local stewardship of the landscape, (iii) creating governance platforms that are inclusive and fair, and (iv) supporting equitable supply chains that support rather than crush local resource users.
The approach hinges upon community engagement and involves communities from day one in both identifying challenges and solutions. This input is then used to design, implement, and evaluate the approach through a community-led system.
The core element of the model is the creation of a Conservation Cooperative (CC). The CC is a community-led organization that engages in conservation and governance of coastal ecosystems. This holistic approach looks to both address underlying drivers of biodiversity loss, climate change, and food insecurity, while also reducing socio-economic hardships that often act as barriers to community engagement in conservation.
The five pillars of CC
There are five pillars that uphold the aims of the Conservation Cooperative. These pillars were designed based upon the needs and the solutions put forward by local community members.
Community health
Fisheries management
Education and Literacy
Livelihood improvement
Mangrove protection
This holistic multi-dimensional approach paves the way for new innovations in the field of development, conservation, and climate science.
The start of the project
Planet Indonesia gathered with community members to discuss what issues they felt needed to be addressed that affect their social, economic and environmental dimensions in day-to-day lives. Five major issues were pointed out by the community: collapse in fish stocks and income; lack of access to government services leading to poor public health and education; mangrove loss (due to illegal logging and aquaculture development); lack of ‘bargaining power’ and supply chain issues that squashed local livelihood; and lack of financial services and institutions.
To address the issue of low mud crab stocks, Planet Indonesia worked alongside villagers to develop the tools to implement river closure areas for three month periods. By doing this, the closure would allow the mud crabs to restore normal behavioural traits and allow the larger crabs to reproduce – ultimately improving fisher family’s livelihoods. By having the community involved in the program process, the model formed is specifically designed to their needs.
Fisheries and Mangrove data collection
Two key factors that villagers outlined in their assessment was the loss of mangrove forest and reduced fish stocks. Oceanwise Australia worked with Planet Indonesia to collect and analyse fisheries and mangrove data. For mud crab data to be collected, crab pots were deployed randomly into three TMR rivers and four open rivers around Sungai Nibung seven days before the fisheries closure was to happen in November and then seven days prior to it re-opening in February. Crabs were counted, measured and catch per unit effort (CPUE) was calculated. Spatial analysis using the Global Forest Watch system was carried out to observe the occurrence of mangrove clearing through the study period.
Results of the program
What did we find? The approach is not only working, it is thriving! By working with communities to establish a program specifically designed to the communities needs while implementing solutions put forward, a number of cross-scale outcomes were achieved.
Through the participatory impact assessment, we asked community members to identify the outcomes observed from the program and score them.
The Conservation Cooperative was ranked as the activity of most importance, with the program having a strong influence on all changes that have been identified. The villagers noted large improvements in their mangrove and fisheries management. Increased income and savings was ranked next, followed by reduced illegal logging of mangroves and lastly improved health and better education levels.
By implementing 3-month fisheries closure to some rivers around Sungai Nibung, mud crabs were much larger in these rivers compared to the rivers that remained open to fishing; which continued to contain smaller crabs.
Before the start of Planet Indonesia’s collaboration with the village, Global Forest Watch data showed high significant mangrove forest loss- 92 alerts in 2016. By 2018, only 25 alerts were detected for mangrove loss, two years after PI started working with the village. This is a tremendous outcome in a step towards protecting a beautiful carbon – rich ecosystem.
Not over yet
Our investment in setting up governance systems creates long-term support for communities wishing to improve their livelihoods, conserve mangroves, and sustainably manage their fishery. We will continue working alongside coastal communities to create a better world for both people and nature.
This study proves how conservation success hinges upon the involvement and engagement of local community members. This study also provides validation that the innovation Conservation Cooperative model can achieve multi-dimensional cross-sector outcomes for communities and nature.
You can read the full published paper at https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10133