Report - Jabatan Taman Laut Malaysia - NRE

The evaluators did explore sustainability in several areas: capacity buildingand awareness raising, financing for MP management needs in the contextof effective MP management and ongoing effective engagement withstakeholders.The capacity building and awareness raising undertaken may not endure ifall these activities conclude at the completion of the project. Thoseinterviewed typically acknowledged for these activities to be effective requirea long term approach. Typically awareness raising and training is mosteffective if delivered systematically over time. It should be consistentlyimplemented. This includes induction with all new staff regarding thedepartment’s functions and coral reef environments, and followed up withdeeper training and experience of its application (experiential learning) in thefield. This knowledge is ideally embedded organisationally into managementtools and processes e.g. biological monitoring, community engagementtechniques, proactive marine protection activities that move beyondenforcement i.e. pro active engagement with dive operators at dive sites andalso tourists at entry points, and environmental education and awarenessraising, and relationship management systems.The emergent signs of financial sustainability through the increasing marinepark budgets are positive indicators. This signals the possibility of the lastingimpact of the investment.Preparation of the bridging arrangement for the project conclusion needs tobe developed. Sustainability post-project needs to be included in theplanning now. It is suggested that the PMU includes planning for this aspart of their programme of work. Mainstreaming the PMU into the DMPMmay assist this. This will be the case if DMPM ensure the purpose of theproject and its activities are seen as ongoing activities and not simply theactivities of the “UNDP project.” The reality of the functions of the DivisionDirectors in DMPM reflecting the project outcomes creates a real opportunityto strengthen linkages to the project immediately. In turn this will helpensure sustainability at the federal level and translated through to the statelevel and the marine parks.Building on the existing project relationships and strengthening them withkey stakeholders who will benefit from the project outcomes is important.These relationships include MoTour, and the full range of tourism operators:dive, boat and airlines and their visitors. These stakeholders have varyingownership of the project outcomes. MoTour should be encouraged to widenits focus from terrestrially focused tourism to include the marine tourism.Especially as the brand marketing of Malaysia includes a strong naturalenvironment focus with many images of the marine environment. It ispossible that without a good understanding of the marine environment andfragility of the corals the brand could be undermined through inappropriatemarketing e.g. large scale mass tourism resort and associated jettydevelopment without the necessary environmental safeguards to protect theecosystem with sensitive corals. Encouraging all the tourism operators:hotel and chalets, dive, boat operators and the airlines to include consistentawareness raising of appropriate behaviours in the marine park andawareness raising of marine conservation will also contribute tosustainability. All activity licensing should require ongoing awarenessraising of marine conservation as a condition of licensing.34