Holistic Management of Mangrove, Sea Grass, and Otter in Bangla-Sapum Bay

Objectives

1) To promote collaboration in protection and rehabilitation of mangrove and otters
2) To establish database on coastal resources leading to a more integrated rehabilitation and conservation of mangrove, sea grass, cram habitat and otter
3) To instill conservation awareness and capacity on the value of coastal and marine resources

Background

Phuket Women's Capacity Development Project: Established in 1998, as a non-registered NGO, with the objectives: 1) To promote gender equality in community and in wider public, 2) To encourage socio-economic self-reliance of communities, and 3) To promote participation of women, CBOs and CSOs in coastal resources management. The project has been working with coastal communities in Phuket Province, even before and after the Tsunami. With the completion and lessons learnt of the project in Phase 1 on the otter conservation, followed by successive brainstorming of communities, the project and targeted population agreed to expand to cover more targeted location and population.

Target beneficiaries

450 out of 796 households in the five communities who directly depend upon provisions of the mangrove in the project location. The per capita income is THB 65,770.

Outputs

Expected Outputs

Accomplishments and challenges

Due to constraint and nature of organizations, the project was not able to initiate official cooperation among the three Tambon Administrative Organizations, but was able to link the activities at community network and youth groups covering wider area.

Contributions to cross-cutting themes

Climate change

The project’s goal is to increase an understanding and awareness on natural resource management among community. This is a process to build-up a community’s immunity in order to handle the change in climate in long-term. 

Lessons Learned

1) Since the project location was one with sectorial conflicts and did not receive substantial solution, responsible government and other public agencies were not able to intervene fully. However, otter protection was regarded as one strategy to bring along these agencies to eventually protect the mangrove
2) Using otter as a strategy was consistent with nature of children who were keen to learn and participate
3) Urbanisation and tourism investment are expanding progressively, at least 20 residence campaigns emerged recently, in Phuket. The tourist group would be targeted for future cooperation on natural resources conservation