Marine Conservation Evidence

Local communities and community-based organizations (CBOs) across the NMC are actively involved in natural resource management, and are key to achieving ecological outcomes of conservation initiatives. In 2019, a learning process was implemented in Tanzania and Madagascar to facilitate learning across the region over the next several years in service of component 3 (improving and sharing successful models and practices for resource management by local communities) of the NMCi. Until now, learning across the NMC on community-based approaches has been limited, despite the high level of resource connectivity between geographies. Many approaches to community-based conservation (CBC) have been applied in practice, with variation between countries, and even between sites. Some approaches have been more successful than others.

The learning process aimed to understand stakeholders’ experiences of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and to examine its current status, using a variety of methods, from a literature review, to focus group discussions, key informant interviews, stakeholder consultations, and participatory workshops. The ultimate objective was to provide insights on what activities could better support CBNRM in both countries and support the NMC, focused on improving and sharing successful models and practices for resource management by local communities.

The findings indicate that governance, human capital, and institutional capacity are important enabling factors in CBNRM, and interventions could usefully target these issues to improve the sustainability of marine CBNRM. Governance issues identified were related to enforcement of local by-laws, benefit sharing during openings of reserves and from fish levies, clear and easily accessible legislation, participation of women, devolution of power to resource management groups, and corruption particularly related to the extraction of marine resources and enforcement of local laws. The findings also indicate that human capital needs to be strengthened through trainings and education to support meaningful participation in marine CBNRM and allow communities greater autonomy. Limited resources hindered resource management groups’ ability to enforce rules and regulations and sustain CBNRM activities in the long term.

The ecological outcomes of marine CBNRM are harder to elucidate. However, an increase in abundance of species targeted for conservation, most prominently octopus in Madagascar and more generally reef species was apparent. Social outcomes were more common with improvements to income and income-generating opportunities, being the most clearly identifiable.

This process revealed that a comprehensive and phased approach to establishing CBNRM was not put into practice; while some core principles of marine CBNRM have been adopted, others appear to have been overlooked or have not been successfully implemented. There was no evidence that practitioners – communities, governments or NGOs – address the theoretical principles of CBNRM in a chronological order that starts with establishing pre-conditions.

As a result, recommendations to improve and sustain CBNRM into the future include

1. strengthening human resources and building capacity for management/enforcement;

2. raising awareness of resource management groups’ activities within communities for buy-in,

3. clarify policy and responsibilities to simplify the bureaucratic process, and

4. implement mechanisms to facilitate collaboration between the range of stakeholders involved in marine CBNRM.

A Review of Community-Based Management in Coastal Ecosystems in Madagascar and Tanzania