05 June 2023
VARUNA_AMP – A first roadmap to strengthen the skills of marine area managers in the South west Indian Ocean
A five-day technical exchange took place in Nosy Be, Madagascar, from the 27th to 31st of March and was organised by the Western Indian Ocean Marine Protected Areas Professional Network (WIOMPAN), the Indian Ocean Commission's RECOS programme (on coastal resilience) and the Varuna_AMP project implemented by Réserves Naturelles de France.The aim of the meeting? Define joint actions between these 3 initiatives for capacity-building of marine area managers in the Southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO) region.
Working together to strengthen managers of marine protected and conserved areas
The meeting brought together more than 40 participants from 7 territories of the SWIO: Madagascar, Union of Comoros, Mayotte, Reunion Island, Mauritius Island, Rodrigues Island and Seychelles. For 5 days, the managers of Marine Protected Areas, of Locally Managed Marine Areas and Voluntary Marine Conserved Areas had the opportunity to meet, sometimes for the first time, to get to know each other, to reflect on avenues of research regarding management effectiveness of marine areas in the region, to identify their expertise and to express their needs to successfully manage their marine area.
“What I already know“, “What I’d like to improve“, “What I’d like to develop“…Discussions based on these questions at the level of each marine area in the region has enabled to draw up an overview of the expertise available in each territory. A list of needs also emerged from these discussions, as well as the tools to be implemented to meet them. Concretely, these tools are exchanges between peers (companionship or mentoring), themed workshops, training courses or technical exchange days that will be proposed to support managers.
Communicating with elected representatives, ensuring the involvement and participation of local communities, improving internal management capacities, setting up monitoring protocols and restoring major ecosystems (seagrass beds, mangroves, coral reefs), delimiting the marine area, enhancing communication about the marine area or developing income-generating activities for the marine area and associated communities: these are the priority actions identified by the participants, enabling the foundations to be laid for a common roadmap for WIOMPAN, RECOS and Varuna_AMP.
The workshop also provided an opportunity to draw up the respective action plans for the Varuna and RECOS projects, while identifying the actions to be implemented to boost and ensure better representation of the SWIO territories within WIOMPAN.
Evaluating the management effectiveness of one’s marine area
Taking advantage of the presence of the practitioners during these days, an IMET (Integrated Management Effectiveness Tool) training course was organised by WIOMSA and WIOMPAN, with the support of RECOS and Varuna. MPA/ LMMA/ VMCA practitioners from the SWIO were trained in the use of the IMET and familiarised with the implementation of Protected Area Management Evaluation (PAME) in the islands. The overall aim was to help them conduct the PAME of their marine areas.
By the end of the course, participants had acquired sufficient knowledge and skills to use IMET independently and to present the tool to their organisation in order to decide whether or not to deploy it in their network of protected and conserved areas.
Next steps…
Relying on these exchange days, and based on the roadmap that has now been drawn up, Varuna, RECOS and WIOMPAN will be rolling out capacity-building actions aimed at managers of marine protected and conserved areas in the region. Training, mentorships, experience-sharing and technical exchange days will be implemented over the coming months and years.
Documentations
A summary report of this event is available here, as are the deliverables, which can be consulted via the following link: https://padlet.com/internationalrnf/journ-es-d-echanges-techniques-wiompan-recos-varuna-2pkgbnm8b0xq4ug
Contact – Réserves Naturelles de France:
- Sevahnee Pyneeandy : sevahnee.pyneeandy@rnfrance.org
- Emmanuelle Sarat: emmanuelle.sarat@rnfrance.org
