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Environment
and development in coastal regions and in small islands |
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Environment
and development in coastal regions and in small islands |
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Coastal region and small island papers 12: papers
Private Sector Management of Marine Protected Areas: The Chumbe Island Coral Park Project in Zanzibar/Tanzania
Introduction
Coral reefs in Tanzania and Zanzibar are under serious threat. Over-fishing, dynamite fishing and other destructive fishing practices, pollution and sedimentation have led to bio-physical deterioration of coral reefs around the country. Fish landings that provide most of the food protein in Zanzibar have been declining exponentially over the last decade.
Chumbe Island Coral Park
Ltd. (CHICOP) is a private marine conservation project established in 1991 for
sustainable management of uninhabited Chumbe Island, a small coral island of 22
ha, located 8 miles southwest of Zanzibar town. Chumbe is covered by a semi-arid
coastal forest and bordered, on its western shore, by a fringing coral reef of
exceptional biodiversity that harbours around 90% of reef-building coral species
recorded in the region. Based on the initiative of CHICOP, the island and part of the
fringing coral reef were gazetted
in 1994 as a protected area by the Government of Zanzibar (user name csi,
password wise), which has semi-autonomous powers over its natural resources
within the United Republic of Tanzania. CHICOP was given management rights and
developed a model of sustainable park management, where ecotourism supports
conservation and free island excursions for local schoolchildren. Thereby,
project objectives are non-commercial, while operations follow commercial
principles.
Conflicts over coastal
resources and values
While most coastal communities depend on fishing for their survival in Tanzania and Zanzibar, there is little evidence of traditional coral reef management or awareness about the limitations of the resource (Scheinman & Mabrook 1996). The national language Kiswahili has no common word for corals, and schools do also not yet provide environmental knowledge on coral reefs (Riedmiller 1991). As a result, decades of destructive fishing methods have until recently raised little public and governmental concern (UNEP-RSRS 1989, Horrill 1992, Guard 1997). Several marine parks designated along the coast in the early seventies remained on paper only (Jameson et al. 1995). Therefore, in the early nineties, there was a strong case for lobbying for conservation and sustainable management of coral reefs and coastal zones, among resource users, political leaders and the general public in Tanzania and Zanzibar.
Chumbe Island borders the shipping channel between Zanzibar and the capital of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam. Its western fringing reef has for decades been off-limits for local fishers, as the traditional dugouts and outrigger boats would have obstructed the way of large vessels. In addition, a military base on the adjacent coast used the area around Chumbe for shooting range exercises.
This unique opportunity for establishing a small totally protected area gave birth to the Chumbe project. However, with the advent of liberalisation from the early nineties, challenges to the management of the marine protected area (MPA) increased during project implementation. The booming tourism industry created a rapidly growing market for marine products and contributed to over-exploitation. High prices made fishing an attractive occupation for urban youths who could afford modern propulsion and fishing gear and had little respect for traditional fishing grounds and the more conservative traditional fishing practices.
Infringements of park regulations reached a peak in 1994/95 when groups of up to 15 fishing boats challenged the park rangers by simultaneously dropping anchor and fishing in the protected area, sometimes threatening violence. Management agreements oblige Government to assist CHICOP with enforcement, but government support was weak and enforcement left to the park rangers who do not carry arms and have limited powers of enforcement.
Finding solutions
With the increasing pressure on coastal resources and the generally weak enforcement of fisheries regulations, the understanding and support of local fishing communities became essential to the effective protection of the Chumbe MPA from exploitation, fishing and anchorage. Therefore, the CHICOP management team relied on educating and convincing local fishers about the benefits they could gain from a small totally protected area, assuming that natural restocking of the adjacent reef areas would in a few years help in this process.
In 1991, project negotiations started with a round of meetings in several fishing villages in the area that were arranged with the support of the Departments of Environment and Fisheries. The objective was to present the project to villagers and win their support. As expected for an off-limits area, few people felt affected by the closure of the Chumbe reef at this stage. However, villagers demanded preference in employment over urban people and proposed candidates among the local fishermen to be employed and trained as park rangers by CHICOP.
From late 1992, when the project had been approved by government and even before the conservation area had been gazetted, six local fishermen were employed, stationed on the island, and over several years trained on-the-job by volunteer biologists and educationists. This informal training focused on the basics of coral reef ecology, the rationale of a small totally closed MPA, the aims of the Chumbe project, and how to communicate this to fishers and villagers. The rangers were also trained to produce daily monitoring reports on any events and to help researchers with baseline surveys. English language and visitor guidance skills training were added later.
The strategy of recruiting local fishers to become park rangers, trained on the job by professional volunteers, proved successful and cost-effective. Working in two- to three-weekly shifts on the island, the rangers continue to reside in villages when off-duty and keep close bonds with villagers. Traditional subsistence fishers responded well, particularly after seeing catches increase in adjacent reefs beyond the closed area. In the absence of any marine rescue services in the country, they also appreciate the help the Chumbe rangers could give in numerous cases of emergencies, storms, engine failure, loss of boats and lack of drinking water. There is evidence that several lives were probably saved by the park rangers. Due to their committed work, there are now no major problems with infringements from fishers or other users, and the MPA is well accepted by local communities (Carter et al. 1997).
Public support was also boosted when the project started taking schoolchildren for day excursions to the island, where they are guided by the park rangers along forest and intertidal nature trails and learn how to swim and snorkel over the reef. This is a unique opportunity particularly for girls who are not normally given that chance in the Islamic culture of Zanzibar.
Government support for the project increased significantly when an Advisory Committee was formed in 1994 with the decisive help of the Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) of the University of Dar es Salaam, and with representatives of the Departments of Fisheries, Forestry and Environment, the IMS and local fishing communities. Government officials from several departments, including the Board of Trustees of the mainland Tanzania Marine Parks and Reserves Unit were regularly invited to Chumbe Island for seeing the project in action and winning their support. A wide variety of stakeholders were involved when the Management Plan 1995-2005 was developed for Chumbe Island in 1995. The enthusiastic feedback from local and international visitors, as well as the several prestigious international awards won by the Chumbe project, have also been of tremendous help for political and public support.
Lessons learnt and wise practices
1. Long term benefits: There are clear long-term benefits when a private sector institution establishes and manages small MPAs for effective resource protection, economics, capacity building and environmental awareness. Committed enforcement that does not depend on external funding can help restock over-fished and depleted reefs adjacent to protected areas, generate management funds and alternative income for local people through tourism, train and create awareness among stakeholders on the requirements and benefits of conservation and sustainable management.
2. Capacity building and institutional strengthening: For conservation achievements on the ground, a small private management body dealing with direct stakeholders has comparative advantages over large central management authorities. Present and future stakeholders participate and benefit more directly, when local fishers are trained as park rangers to deal with local communities, employment is offered to local people, and when schoolchildren and ecotourists are offered environmental education. The investment negotiations involved in setting up the reserve and for the several management agreements, help create awareness among political leaders and civil servants about the legal, financial and institutional requirements of conservation and ecotourism.
3. Sustainability: Compared to government-controlled and externally funded management bodies, private management has stronger incentives to achieve conservation on the ground, generate income, be cost-effective and keep overheads down.
Eco-architecture also contributes to environmental sustainability. Construction of the Visitor's Centre and accommodations on Chumbe Island make maximum use of state-of-the-art technologies to provide renewable and clean energy and water and avoid and recycle waste, thus making sure that human activities have close to zero impact on the sensitive terrestrial and marine ecology of the island. These technologies increase economic risks, as some are more costly than conventional building and not always fully tested under tropical conditions.
However, the most serious threats to economic sustainability are given by the dependence on international tourism for income generation, a market that is sensitive to political turmoil and perceived security and health risks. Such risks could be reduced by an international insurance scheme that buffers privately managed and other sustainable parks against severe income loss from visitor fluctuations.
4. Transferability: Sustainable private management of MPAs is feasible (user name csi, passwaord wise) under certain conditions. Where coral reefs have tourism potential and are not yet over-exploited for subsistence by local communities, privately managed marine parks are viable and can generate considerably more income than fisheries and other resource extraction. To be attracted under developing world conditions, private investment in conservation and marine park management would require above all, long-term security of tenure and a conducive political, legal and institutional environment for foreign and local investment in general.
5. Interdisciplinary and intersectoral: The commitment for effective on-site conservation provides strong incentives to involve all necessary professional disciplines and to take account of affected community groups in the management of a particular MPA. To succeed in this endeavour, private initiatives cannot afford academic and social sectarianism.
6. Participatory process: People involved in tourism and fisheries, for example, are often direct stakeholders in a particular area and depend on the same resource. Both groups share a potential interest in sustainable resource use, and have thus strong incentives for effective communication and direct participation on issues related to the management and conservation on-site. This is in contrast to non-representative management authorities where external funding sometimes creates incentives for a proliferation of bureaucratic institutions and procedures with high overhead costs that may alienate direct stakeholders.
7. Consensus building: Dealing with direct stakeholders of a specific protected area facilitates consensus building, particularly where they share interests and can derive clear benefits from conserving that area, e.g. increased catches in adjacent areas. In many countries, traditional subsistence fishers are among the poorer sections of the society, with low social status and limited access to a career in the civil service. They find it easier to give credibility to and co-operate with park rangers who have been fishers themselves and who they helped recruit. A park management that is responsive to the local fisher's needs, e.g. by providing marine rescue services, is also more acceptable. Public education, particularly through the school system also helps build ownership. Under developing world conditions, political decision makers and civil servants may be more interested in the business prospects of the park, thus the private sector has to take account of this.
8. Effective and efficient communication process: Village meetings and media campaigns, guided environmental excursions, on-site education of fishers by park rangers, advisory committees and management plans that involve stakeholders are effective ways of building support for a MPA. However, the process is time-consuming, and the private sector has a limited mandate in this field and cannot bear all costs. Government and civil society support are needed. International conservation and donor organizations can play an important role here.
9. Culturally respectful: Training local fishermen to be park rangers and to communicate effectively with fellow fishers, provides an enormous opportunity to learn about both the wealth and the limitations of local traditional knowledge. Acknowledging the wealth and overcoming the limitations is what the rangers' training and educational work is all about!
10. Gender and sensitivity issues: Where the local culture does not encourage women to learn how to swim, an environmental education program that teaches schoolgirls snorkelling in the coral reef, can help increase public support for marine conservation. This may be more acceptable when girl groups are taught separately from boys and culturally permissible dress codes respected.
11. Strengthening local identities: Tourism has an enormous potential to generate greater appreciation of unique natural and cultural resources that are locally taken for granted. For example, the realization that coral reefs are only found in the tropics and do attract tourists from far away, is quite an eye opener for local people and helps develop feelings of ownership in Zanzibar.
12. National legal policy: Coastal zone management and marine conservation are new fields of government responsibility in many parts of the world. Where private investment is encouraged in principle, the tourism sector can help with management and enforcement of MPAs, and raise awareness on the environmental, investment, economic, legal or social policies required for effective conservation and sustainable management on the ground. An attractive investment policy would have to address issues of good governance, security of tenure, contractual and legal framework, financial services, as well as incentives concerning land rent, taxes, fees and licenses. A favourable policy framework is only the start of the process. Second-tier constraints created by ambiguous regulations and wide discretionary powers of civil servants have to be removed, particularly concerning land leases, building permits, immigration and labour laws.
13. Regional dimension: The significance of small totally closed MPAs and of networks of MPAs for effective marine conservation and regional coastal zone management are increasingly recognised by the international conservation community. Restocking of depleted marine areas through larval dispersal from protected areas helps preserve biodiversity and provide economic benefits far beyond national boundaries. Regional networking for effective marine conservation is also crucial for campaigning against global warming that is believed to have disastrous effects particularly on coral reefs.
14. Human rights: Effective localised action for conservation and sustainable management of resources needed for survival of local communities helps exercise their fundamental human rights.
15. Documentation: The Chumbe project and lessons learnt have been widely documented on the Internet, with papers to international conferences, academic publications and the national and international publicity generated by the international awards and for marketing the project (see references below).
16. Evaluation: Research and monitoring programs, some in co-operation with the Institute of Marine Sciences of the University of Dar es Salaam, have provided and continue to provide important data on the marine and terrestrial ecology of Chumbe Island and adjacent areas. Findings give evidence that the fringing coral reef is among the most pristine in the region, with over 370 species of fish (Fiebig 1995) and around 200 species of scleractinian coral, at least 90% of all recorded in East Africa (Veron pers. com. 1997). The forest covering the island is one of the last pristine 'coral rag' forests in Zanzibar (Beentje 1990). This has encouraged the Zanzibar Commission for Natural Resources and international conservation organisations to establish a breeding sanctuary there for the highly endangered Aders' duiker endemic in Zanzibar (Kingdon 1997). Other resident and migrant rare species found on Chumbe include Coconut crabs (Birgus latro) and Roseate terns (Sterna dougalli). Several international awards (EXPO2000 Worldwide Project, 1999 British Airways Tourism for Tomorrow Global Award and UNEP Global500 Award) may also be seen as an external evaluation of the Chumbe project.
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