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European Symposium on MPAs
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New Resources Available: Sustainable Livelihoods Approach
So you manage an MPA or you’ve just established one and are concerned that the restrictions put on fishing are going to have unintended economic effects on the fishing community. Perhaps you are thinking about developing an alternative livelihood project to help address this impending or existing situation and decide to train fishers to become fly fishing guides. Or perhaps you opt to encourage seaweed farming by displaced fishers. Regardless of the project, the place, or the people, it is important to approach what is now being called the ‘sustainable livelihood approach’ with caution and consideration. Many have thought of these activities as ‘alternative livelihoods’ and have made assumptions about what fishers would prefer to do and what will ultimately be successful, without thinking too much about the special situation at their own site. Recently, Ronan Roche, a PhD student from the University of Rhode Island began looking at some of these questions and working to better define the problem and provide recommendations on how to approach such projects. Ronan has summarized his findings in two documents focusing on Livelihoods Approaches as a Conservation Tool: A meant to be a communication piece to engage folks in the longer, more . Both of these documents are posted on the , a temporary site until www.reefresilience.org gets through the revision process. The good news is that successful sustainable livelihood projects have been found to be critical to successful MPAs, so it is definitely worth a look.
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From Seychelles to South Africa
I attended a follow-up short course on reef resilience that was held at the annual meeting for Society of Conservation Biology in July in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The main aim of the short course was to share experience on the lessons learned as well as new tools that were now available. It was a great opportunity to be able to meet up with scientist from different regions of the world and share our experience. Seeing how different regions were applying the resilience principles in their marine conservation areas was very useful and this gave me new ideas on how to improve upon the work we have started in the Seychelles. Being able to share my experience with others also got me to see the bigger picture about how the resilience principles were being used in many parts of the world successfully. I was also surprised to see the interest in the work being done in my country. The delegates were especially keen to know about a new project we are working on that will use radar to monitor fishing vessels in our Marine Protected Areas. The SCB meeting itself was also a great opportunity for me with plenty of interesting presentations to attend. In fact there were so many good ones that I sometimes found it hard to choose which one to attend. Overall I think the greatest experience and benefit which I got from both the resilience short course and SCB meeting was being able to meet so many participants from so many different fields. This has allowed me to establish contacts with many experts, establishing a useful network which I don’t think would have been possible without a meeting of such scale. For more information about Rodney’s institution and the work happening in the Seychelles check out the . The Next Generation of Resources – Toolkit Survey Most of you should have received an invitation to participate in a survey about the Reef Resilience Toolkit. The survey is critical to the upcoming revisions to the R2 Toolkit as well as the web resources that are being developed. We need to know what works for you and what types of information you need. This is an opportunity for you to tell us what you think and shape the content of the next version. Please take a few moments to fill out this survey – it only takes about 10 minutes. If you are interested in reviewing or contributing to the next version – we would love to hear from you! If you didn’t receive an invitation and want to participate, click on the and get going! Thanks to those of you that already have filled it out!!!
, September 25-28, 2007 Recent Publications & Other Resources
Related News Article:
This is an excellent resource with maps of many reefs around the world. Click on your area and check out the images. This might be useful for your mapping activities, classifications, locating reefs for surveys, and more.
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