is it reaching the right audience? An assessment from a Mexican ... Restoration audience. (stakeholders): researchers .... Clear schemes for spatial prioritization ...
Ecological restoration capacity-building: is it reaching the right audience? An assessment from a Mexican experience
Aníbal F. Ramírez Soto, César Raziel Lucio-Palacio, Ixchel Sheseña Hernández, Omar Trujillo Santos, Gabriela Gutiérrez Sosa, Diego A. Palacios-Arriaga. Laura Landa, Robert Manson Hunter, Jorge López Portillo,
• Mexican Non-Profit Organization
(+20 years) • Ecosystem restoration • Native tree species conservation • Land protection • Wildlife and ecosystem monitoring • Sustainable productive alternatives • Environmental education
Pronatura Veracruz • Work Area: Gulf of Mexico (Mexican portion) • Large official, broad-scale, depauperating, uneffective projects • Restoration audience (stakeholders): researchers (academia), government specialists, NGO technicians, community leaders
Practical experience: 12 years and 3,000 ha restored • Ecological restoration in Cloud Forests and Mangroves with private funding • Documentation the failed of official models • Building the own experience by trial-error and national and international networking. • In 2008 born the Ecoforestry program has a alternative approach in ER.
Pronatura´s capacity-building process based in capitalization of experience
Small scale NGO assests • Accumulated experience, willing praticioners.
Efforts towards building capacities
• Mexican NGO’s rarely share expertise • Broad-scale oficial investment : there is more money than capacity for using it wisely
Reccord experience to learn • Documenting experience through sharing
Provide tools for biomonitoring for measure succesfull in ER.
PV Restoration courses • Annual • Cloud or Mangrove Forests • Original material, e.g.: videoclips • Field practice. Site diagnostics and interpretation, applied nucleation, monitoring, networking.
PV restoration courses
• Mangrove course with restoration and sustainable forestry approaches • Online platforms (up to 50 students): • • • • •
Theory-based written material Original video-clips Pre-reccorded lectures Virtual library Individual exercises
Strategic Alliance: Academy-Practice • INECOL-Pronatura Veracruz • Field practice. Site diagnostics and interpretation, applied nucleation, monitoring, linkage • Guest instructors for selected themes (110 specialistsr) • Project advisors (up to five) • Final goal: developping individual, feasible projects
Funding and partners • Economical sustaintability
Online training combined whit practical approach • Not for every public
• On-line strategies are still out of reach of most part of communities • Private sector are not priority for offer scholarships
Diversifying the experience • Mangrove forests • More complex problematics • Higher relevance to International stakeholders and funding opportunities • More opportunities of interaction, financial support and influence
Extended network in mangrove ecological restoration
Extended network in cloud forest ecological restoration
Key elements • People implementing restoration actions gain experience (Human Capital) • Share practical lessons with more people • Learn from others, improve implementation • Incresed visibility, outreach, funding opportunities
• An so on (iterative)
Additional results: growing up
Alumni by sector
• 2017: 274 students, 217 TMCF, 56 mangrove forests
Academics
• 244 México, 29 other countries
• Mexican states: 20
5% 3%
38%
22%
• Countries: Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Perú, Spain • Specialized questionnaires for alumni survey (66 solved)
32%
Government specialists NGO techinicians Independent consultants Community leaders
Practical acquiered skills
Native seeds Outreach (others)
In average, each alumni uses two skills in their actual jobs.
Applied skills
Outreach (communities) Outreach (government) Fundraising
Project Evaluation Project Planning Monitoring Implementation Capacity Building Diagnostics 0.00
5.00
10.00
Proportion
15.00
20.00
Particular outcomes • Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP) aprove nucleation techniques as a techniques in PROCODES (subvention program, 2015) after a recommendation from Pronatura alumni. • Exporting our approach: Colombia (2015) Guatemala (2016), El Salvador (2017) • Funding opportunities: National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC) asked for restoration projects on mangrove forests (60 ha).
Skills for facing challenges • Generate livelihoods from restoration activities • Innovative funding strategies • Increase success rates • Finding effective performance measures • Clear schemes for spatial prioritization
Additional lessons • We are the interdisciplnary team (more 40 persons) inclouded Community restorationist, technicians and teams leaders)
• Constructivism aproach • Specilization in two prioritity ecosystems (cloud temperate forest and mangrove.
Conclusions and recommendations • In NGOs with a practical approach to ecological restoration, capacity building is key element for: • Documenting and sharing practical knowledge • Scale-up projects, visibility, funding, … • Strategic partnerships and linkages • Reach different levels of stakeholders • The skills developped and applied in our courses answer some of the most urgent needs in national restoration panorama. • The RE is a complex process involving actors in different social sectors: the capacity building of Pronatura and its partners has positively impacted the audience at government, academic and NGO levels. • The RE practitioner possesses the experience and methods of information systematization, can capitalize the experience and create new knowledge
Acknowlegments • Local communities and private owners • INECOL, NatureServe, ELTI, NAWCA, US Fish & Wildlife Service (Neotropical Conservation Act), IKI, FAV (Environmental Veracruz Fund), CONAFOR (National Forestry Comision), American Forests
