Rodrigo Villate
Educating People for a Local Monitoring Program of the Cana Coral Reef Ecosystem at the Corn Island, Nicaragua
Research assistants Lindsay Canet and Chema Vides during survey.
Trying out the quadrant.
Using the coral health chart.
| Town/Region | Country | Categories | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corn Island | Nicaragua | Central and Latin America, Corals, Marine | 3 Mar 2010 |
Considering that conservation actions must have scientific information to support a political ecology and that the base for a good political conservation action is to offer complete information and provide a solid social institutional network (Campbell et al. 2007; Campbell 2007), one specific environmental benefit that the local community will obtain from this project is the establishment of an ecological and biological monitoring program of the Cana coral reef that can be implemented and continued by local stakeholders, such as fishermen, dive shops, and the Local Communal Government. This way proper scientific information would be available for informed decisions.
In the same way, the conservation actions carried out by different local stakeholders (consolidation of a marine reserve) will be reinforced by an environmental awareness and education program; as well as cultural and social activities that tend to include and motivate the local population to participate in these conservation actions, bearing in mind that long lasting contribution to nature conservation depends upon the empowerment of local communities towards conservation actions. On the other hand, there will be benefits for some local stakeholders (fishermen and members of the local communal government and municipal government) that will be trained as PADI open water “monitoring” divers.
This human capital benefit will have two major inputs: giving local people the tools and training to continue the monitoring program in the long term and educating them for a safe diving practice.
Campbell L, Haalboom B, Trow J. 2007. Sustainability of community-based conservation: sea turtle egg harvesting in Ostional (Costa Rica) ten years later. Environmental Conservation 34 (2): 122–131
Campbell L. 2007. Local Conservation Practice and Global Discourse: A Political Ecology of Sea Turtle Conservation. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 97(2): 313–334
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