Bex in Moz

Participating and evaluating

So I know you’re all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to hear about the participative evaluation on Ibo. It was actually a very interesting exercise and went very well. We brought in representatives of 8 different coastal and island communities to discuss the park’s work and how the communities are experienceing its results, their level of satisfaction and what still needs to be done. We used a number of PRA techniques, which generally involve using simple diagrams to show trends and changes over time, to look at these issues. In general, the communities gave us a big thumbs up, especially due to the success of a number of fishing sanctuaries, which are areas that have been totally protected in order to act as nursery grounds. Initial scepticism has given way to general enthusiasm and demands for more sanctuaries as the fishermen catch more and larger fish in the surrounding waters. Also very popular have been support for schools and some health programmes, less successful actions to protect fields against elephant attacks. They’d really like to get rid of the elehants altogether if at all possible. Most interesting of all, however, was watchingthe dynamics and seeing people exchange experiences and compare results from different areas in the park. They told us that they particularly valued this, and it was also clear that they felt that the park was really listening to them.

So a very satisfying, if rather tiring, few days. We worked with the community from 7am to 1pm, then worked on the reults from 4 til 6pm. Also it was HOT. Sebastian, who still travels with me as he is not yet weaned, broke out in a terrible heat rash all over. Looked awful, but it’s now much better thanks to cooler weather here in Pemba and large amounts of calamine lotion.

Labels: Ibo, new house

posted by Rebecca @ 9:19 am