We are happy to finally show you our new video explaining the background and purpose of the EU Ocean Governance Project. It will increase the project’s visibility and become a useful tool to introduce ourselves to new audiences at future events. Watch and share!
Senegal is one of the countries strongly involved in the utilisation and promotion of the R-SAT tool, which helps managers of Marine Protected Areas to assess and increase their MPAs resilience to rapid changes, such as climate change impacts. From 4th to 9th December 2022, the Resilience Twinning, coordinated by Jean-Jacques Goussard, organised a Training of Trainers for the R-SAT tool in Toubacouta, Senegal, to further expand the excellent partnership the Ocean Governance Project has with this country. This Training of Trainers took place as a response to an increasing demand from the side of our partners at the National Directorate of Community Marine Protected Areas (DAMCP), who have already experienced the benefits of a first Training of Trainers in May 2022.
12 MPA managers and conservationists were selected to participate in this second training, which was facilitated by Jean-Jacques Goussard and our resilience partner for Africa, Mathieu Ducrocq. Some representatives of the DAMCP as well as the French MPA Mangroves Project, which co-funded the training, also attended. The participants came from different regions across the whole country to ensure a wide dissemination of the expertise gained in the workshop.
During the six-day-long training, the participants did not only get theoretical input about the notion of resilience and its implications for MPA management. They also worked together on a practical case study by applying the R-SAT tool to different Senegalese national parks, for instance the Langue de Barbarie National Park and the Bamboung MPA. The group was also taught the proper use of the resilience online platform, which they can pass on by replicating the training with their teams and wider network in the future.
The training has proven to have a dual benefit, as it does not only create autonomous managers who can promote the correct use of the R-SAT tool, but through the case studies at the same time increases the number of self-assessments completed and stored on the resilience platform. Interviews with the Director of the DAMCP, the Head of the Monitoring and Evaluation Department and the Coordinator of the MPA Mangroves project showed that DAMCP officials and staff highly appreciated this educational opportunity. The Resilience Twinning will certainly continue this format of Training of Trainers in 2023, and has started to update the didactic material for an improved learning experience.
’30 by 30’ is the goal included in the draft of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, meaning that 30 per cent globally of land and sea ought to be conserved through systems of protected areas by 2030. In South-East Asia, where currently only 3.88 per cent of sea areas fall under this protection, this target is an enormous challenge. In order to catalyse action for the achievement of new biodiversity targets in South-East Asia, the EU Ocean Governance project partnered up with the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity to host a three-day workshop in Puerto Princesa, Philippines.
From 23 to 25 November, 30 participants from different ASEAN countries came together in Puerto Princesa to share knowledge and expertise among each other regarding the progress on plans and strategies to achieve new protection targets. The workshop was organised in anticipation of the currently ongoing 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), where the new Global Biodiversity Framework shall be agreed upon. The current draft of the text for CBD includes target 3:
To reach this new Aichi biodiversity target of potentially 30 per cent in South-East Asia, it will require considerable amounts of ambition and investment. The success of this endeavour is dependent on transboundary cooperation and knowledge-sharing, which the EU Ocean Governance project aims to facilitate as part of its project components 3 and 4. The workshop in Puerto Princesa aimed to deliver capacity-building that helps the ASEAN countries to better appreciate this new set of goals and to harness their potential to reach them.
Marine protected areas are not the only form of conservation that are accepted under the new Biodiversity Framework, and the workshop reflected this by discussing alternative approaches for site-based conservation. Presentations therefore covered the topics of other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) and indigenous and community conserved areas. Our expert speakers further gave presentations on sustainable finance of different conservation measures, which inspired lively discussions in brainstorming groups among the participants. One day of the workshop was dedicated to a field visit to the community-led Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (PPUR), where it was extremely insightful to listen to the voices of the local people in charge of managing and conserving this area.
The workshop has been a success on many levels. First of all, it achieved its main goal of sharing knowledge and expertise among Southeast Asian nations to facilitate the achievement of the new biodiversity targets. It also offered a platform for cooperation and a space where new partnerships could be built, as it brought together actors from government and civil society of many different countries. Last but not least, this workshop has been the first contact with the EU Ocean Governance project, expanding our scope to new countries including Brunei, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar.
We want to thank the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity, our consortium partners at WWF, and all participants for their support and participation in this workshop. Our team is now at COP15, where we closely follow the ongoing negotiations and promote the need for capacity building and knowledge exchange in the form of events like this last workshop in Puerto Princesa.
