A guide for planners and managers - IUCN

68 MARINE AND COASTAL
PROTECTED AREAS
– Participatory surveys provide a
means to fully involve interest
groups. Survey is the initial stage
of the planning process. Community
members who participate in
surveys can advise other users and
village committees on resource
status during the planning process.
– The structure of any community
can be quite complex, and can
be masked by those whose
livelihood is more secure as they
may have more time to participate
in meetings, or may be more
confident to speak out. The
FIGURE I-36.
An extension officer talks with villagers who are part of the
Tanga Coastal Management Project in Tanzania. The project
has resulted in several protected areas based on issue
identification and priorities set by the villagers.
priority issues of those who are very poor may differ from those who are better
off. The use of wealth ranking and poverty profiling can help identify the poorest
and their priorities.
– Socioeconomic and resource assessments need to be gender sensitive and recognize
that the resource uses and activities of men and women differ, as do their access
to and control over resources, and their abilities and vulnerabilities. Assessments
should profile these differences. Gender disaggregated data will enable the impact
of actions on both men and women to be monitored.
– Rapid assessments produce critical and sufficient information for management,
but require calibration with long term studies.
– In using rapid assessment techniques it is necessary to validate findings by
“triangulation”, i.e., using different methods to corroborate findings. Secondary
sources of information, statistics and direct observations are very useful and are
independent of villager perceptions.
– Management issues identified at community level do not differ markedly from those
given by resource managers. Consequently, community-perceived issues, their
causes and solutions can be used to define overall objectives, results and activities
for management action planning.
– Semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, participatory mapping, and
ranking are all useful tools. It is necessary to continuously monitor and modify
these tools during assessments to verify that they are yielding the required
information.
– Selecting useful socioeconomic and biophysical indicators, which can be reliably
measured at a later stage, is difficult. To be really useful, indicators need to be closely
linked to the objectives of management.
Photo by Erkki Siirila.