Marine Conservation

Poachers are a serious threat to leatherback, hawksbill and olive ridley turtles on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast. They illegally harvest the turtle eggs along beaches and kill hawksbills to use their shell for jewellery. FFI has trained over 80 community members in turtle protection and hatchery management achieving an impressive rise in hatching success on key nesting beaches, and protecting over 90% of leatherbacks nesting in Nicaragua and an estimated 50% of the known nesting hawksbill population in the Eastern Pacific. In addition, FFI has  helped communities to find other ways of making a living (such as making handbags from recycled plastic bags) and raised national awareness to reduce demand for turtle eggs. We are maintaining all this work and extending protection to near-shore waters.

Aceh’s marine ecosystems were heavily damaged by the 2004 tsunami. So too were the communities’ fishing fleets. This meant local communities lost their ability to earn income from both fishing and tourism. FFI is helping to rebuild livelihoods by empowering poor families to re-establish sustainable small tourism-related businesses while protecting coastal ecosystems.

FFI is working in partnership with the Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management (BMRG) to enhance the development of conservation in the Burnett Mary Region of south-east Queensland. The region’s stunning Great Sandy Biosphere supports an especially diverse array of species and is an important stop-over for humpback whales. FFI are helping to build the capacity of BMRG to establish sustainable finance mechanisms and to plan a landscape-level strategy. We are also working on innovative projects that aim to increase the involvement of the Indigenous community in the area’s conservation.

FFI’s ‘floating classroom’, the EcoBoat, has taught thousands of Vietnamese school children the importance of balancing their nation’s economic development with preservation of the natural environment and biological diversity. During their day trips in magically beautiful Ha Long Bay, a World Heritage Site, the students explore caves and mangrove forests, interview fishermen and women and take part in lively debates.

The EcoBoat has been absorbed into the government’s Ha Long Bay Management Department but is intended to evolve into an independent civil society organisation.

Fauna & Flora International is supporting Grey Nurse Shark Watch – a community-based photographic identification and monitoring project gathering information (sent in by volunteers) on grey nurse shark numbers, movements and distribution in south-east Queensland.

Researchers are also using acoustic tagging to locate and protect critical grey nurse shark gestation habitat. The programme has been enabled through the collaboration of FFI, the Queensland Department of Environment & Resource Management, Burnett Mary Regional Group and the University of Queensland, with the generous support of Australian Capital Equity and Australia Zoo. The Grey Nurse Shark Watch database is hosted by Reef Check Australia.

Offshore and deep-sea fossil fuel extraction is growing but it poses serious danger for marine wildlife and ecosystem health. FFI is advising the oil and gas sector on the need for risk and opportunity management regarding marine habitats. FFI also encourages good stewardship and the potential for biodiversity offsets in both global and local ocean programmes.

The Ecuadorian government is striving to establish a system of Marine Protected Areas along the coast. FFI is supporting this process together with the national organisation Fundación Futuro Latino Americano and the Ministry of Environment. We are focusing especially on developing innovative participatory governance systems for the emerging protected areas. We are also working with communities in the south of Ecuador to protect large areas of mangrove swamp and promote sustainable use of the crab and cockle populations that thrive there.

FFI and partners are now forming a regional collaboration between Ecuador and initiatives in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras, to advance innovative approaches to marine habitat conservation.

Building on our experience of Marine Protected Area governance in Ecuador, Fauna & Flora International and partner FFLA are forming a new regional collaboration to enhance marine habitat conservation across Central America, focusing on Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua.

This initiative will benefit from lesson-sharing with experienced regional and national partners: CoopeSoliDar R.L, RECOTURH, FUNDENIC and FFLA. We are focusing on addressing common themes of marine governance, participatory processes for natural resource management, spatial management and access rights.

Aceh’s coastal systems contain some of the highest concentrations of biodiversity in the world, with Critically Endangered species, such as leatherback turtles, and genetically unique species, such as giant clams. The marine life around Aceh’s outer islands is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and, more immediately, unsustainable fishing practices.

FFI is working with coastal communities, especially their customary leaders, and local government on the islands of Weh, Simuelue and Banyak to implement a network of Locally Managed Marine Areas that will uniquely combine customary marine law and government policy within a co-management system.

On the north coast of Kenya, FFI is working to establish a constituency of community conservation initiatives to address sustainable management of marine and coastal resources from the Tana Delta to the Somali border.

FFI is developing partnerships to support individual community initiatives and is supporting the development of an umbrella member organisation to strengthen coordination and communication, and to ensure sustained technical support over the long term.

On Kenya’s south coast, FFI is working to conserve marine biodiversity and improve the livelihoods of coastal communities through conservation and sustainable management of marine and coastal resources.

FFI is supporting and developing the capacity of community-based organisations, including Beach Management Units, to establish a network of Locally Managed Marine Areas and Community-Conserved Areas.

As the oldest conservation organisation in East Africa, the East African Wild Life Society (EAWLS) has benefitted from support from FFI. It has been extremely successful in combating rhino and elephant poaching in the past, but was struggling to function by the mid 1990s. FFI has helped to rebuild EAWLS’ conservation capacity and is currently supporting them in the development of a regional conservation plan focusing on their coastal and marine programme. The overall goal is to conserve biodiversity and improve the livelihoods of coastal communities through the sustainable management of coastal and marine resources in Kenya.