Capacity Building of Human Resources and Participation in Integrated
Coastal Resources Management

( 2004 -2008 )

1. INTRODUCTION

The main objectives of the program are to achieve the community-based management for sustainable coastal fishery resources and to alleviate poverty in coastal communities, with particular emphasis on women's groups. As an implication of Locally Based Coastal Fishery Resource Management projects implemented in Thailand and Malaysia by the end of December 2004, it was confirmed that the capacity building of human resource should place greater emphasis on the progress to ensure the sustainable coastal resource management. The project deployed pragmatic activities to stimulate and encourage people's participation as well as to build people's capacity for involvement in coastal resource management and community development. The people's participation is an initial empowerment to contribute to the institution of a local management body to vigorously lead community development and coastal resource management. The local management body takes the function of establishing local businesses to gradually create job opportunities both inside and outside the fisheries sectors of the community. In addition, the local management body also leads to encouragement of people's participation and creation of activities in resource management to strengthen people's awareness on managing resources at local level.

The proposed program has 3 main components. Component-1 plans to follow up and strengthen the activity on people's capacity building and participation in the two on-going projects under the TF-I; i.e. ICRM-PD (ex-project LBCFM-PD) in Thailand as a sub-component 1: Project 1 and ICRM-PL (the ex-project LBCRM-PL) as a sub-component 2: Project 2 as their 2 nd phases. The former project activity and the impact were evaluated in 2004, and based upon the outcome of the evaluation the project action plan was reformulated as phase II to meet the new requirements for the follow-up stages of the basic project concept from 2005 under the financial arrangement of TF-IV. The main emphasis in the phase II ICRM-PD was placed on institutional and human capacity building in the core fishermen groups throughout the remaining project term, while the one in the 2 nd phase of ICRM-PL has been put on human capacity building in the deployment of integrated coastal resources management centered on the demarcated zone for community fisheries to be established by DOF Malaysia. The project ICRM-PD had been achieving expected goals toward the end of 2006 as scheduled. The project was taken over by DOF Thailand from January 2007 for the three years tenure under the financial auspices by the Royal Project and the Local Administration. The SEAFDEC/TD has been involved in this follow-up project as the capacity of an observer in a bid to ensure its sustainable execution of the project. The project ICRM-PL has been achieving expected outcomes although they suffered from the devastating tsunami assault in December 2004 and the phase-out process is on the right track. Given such a progress of the project status, the project could be terminated the SEAFDC's initiative in December 2007 as originally planned with some minor follow-up activities in 2008.

The Component 2 is the implementation stage of the component 1 concept for other member countries. Since the inception of the project operation of LBCFM-PD and LBCRM-PL in Thailand and Malaysia , respectively under TF-I, a few other member counties have proposed to commence similar CBFRM projects in their own countries within the collaboration framework with SEAFDEC/TD. In fact, four other member countries, i.e. Indonesia , Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia and Myanmar , had officially expressed their interest to initiate the similar projects under the collaborative project arrangement before 2004. Among these countries, Cambodia was selected as the 3 rd country to start up the project. The document formulation for the similar project was completed for in Cambodia entitled “Integrated Coastal Resources Management in Sihanoukville (ICRM-SV)” in July 2005. But the arrangement for its initiation was delayed until November 2005 when the project formally commenced its activity as the 3 rd sister project with an opening ceremony. The project has been progressing in the right track since then demonstrating measurable impacts to the fisheries communities.

As a Component 3, the regional training courses for fishery managers and extension officers were proposed. The role of the fishery managers are provide information to decision maker on formulating and transforming policy into management plans. Extension officers are deal with communities in community development and CBRM. There are vital and the capacity building is urgently called for. More emphasis in this training courses are placed on problem-and-solution analysis and the practical application at the project site level, making best use of experiences and knowledge gained through the ongoing collaborative project operations.

2. PROGRAM

2.1 Component 1: Follow-up of the on-going projects

Project 1: Integrated Coastal Resources Management in Pathew District (ICRM-PD) = LBCFM-PD Phase II ( Thailand )

1. Objectives

     1) To develop capacity building of local human resource to empower the local people involved in vigorous community development to manage and sustain coastal resources.

     2) To develop systematic voluntary participation from the local people in management of local body and to proactively strengthen community development and resource management

     3) To encourage people's participation in creating job opportunities and in establishing local businesses to increase accessible income source to alleviate poverty and to develop the economic base of the community

2. Activities for the year 2008

In fact, the project was terminated in December 2006 as initially scheduled and the activity in 2008 is confined to just follow-up works as listed below.

Activity 1 : Follow-up activity

     •  Participation to SC and IC meetings
     •  Participation to the local seminar
     •  Monitoring crab bank activity
     •  Monitoring fish fingerings releasing activity
     •  Supporting in fish landing survey

Project 2: Integrated Coastal Resources Management in Pulau Langkawi (ICRM-PL)= LBCRM-PL Phase II( Malaysia )

1. Objectives

     1) To develop capacity building in local human resources to empower the locals to manage and sustain coastal resources and vigorous community development.

     2) To develop systematic voluntary participation of local people in local management body and to proactively strengthen community development and resource management

     3) To encourage people's participation in creating job opportunities and in establishing local businesses to increase accessible of income source to alleviate poverty and to develop the economic scale of the community.

2. Activities for the year 2008

The project is bound to be terminated in December 2007 and the activity in 2008 is confined to follow-up work as listed below.

Activity 1 : Compilation and publication of reports

     - Several surveys conducted in 2007 are compiled and the reports are published
     - The project final report is compiled and published.
     - The project evaluation report is published.
     - The regional seminar report is compiled and published.

Activity 2 : Follow-up activity

     - Participations in IC meetings
     -  Participation in the local seminars and workshops organized by DOF Malaysia
     -  Monitoring crab bank activity
     -  Monitoring the women's group activity

Activity 3 : Terminal project evaluation

     - Final socio-economic survey
     - Terminal project evaluation
     -  Wrap-up SC meeting

Activity 4 : Regional seminar for project wrap-up

     -   A regional seminar is organized to review impacts resulted from the project operation with participation of representatives from SEAFDEC member countries.

2.2 Component 2: Extension of the project concept to other member countries

Project 3: Integrated Coastal Resources Management in Sihanoukville (ICRM-SV) Cambodia

1. Objectives

     1) To develop capacity in local human resources to empower the locals to manage and sustain coastal resources and vigorous community development

     2) To develop systematic voluntary participation from the local people to manage the local body and to proactively strengthen community development and resource management

     3) To encourage people's participation in creating job opportunities and in establishing local businesses to increase accessible of income source to alleviate poverty and to develop the economic scale of the community.

2. Activities for the year 2008

In 2007, the project operation has been put in place in full scale and it is anticipated to be deployed further in 2008 in line with the original project orientation.  

Activity 1 : Baseline / monitoring survey

     •  Continuation of the regular fish landing data collection
     •  Analysis and compilation of the results obtained in 2007  

Activity 2 : Encouragement and extension of locally-based fishery resources management

     •  Coordination in promulgation of the Community Fisheries Area Agreement (CFAA) along with CFAMP, BL , IL and MCFA
     •  Formation of Community Fisheries Coordination Committee (CFCC)
     •  Practical application of CFAMP in close consultation with CFCC
     •  Strengthening the capacity and capability of local enforcement activity  

Activity 3 : Promotion of local business

     •  Monitoring mushroom production with emphasis on commercially viable management
     •  Identify and initiate other potential local businesses
     •  Continuation of mud-crab culturing with emphasis on commercially viable management
     •  Commencement of tilapia / sea bass culturing in use of mud-crab ponds

Activity 4 : Enhancement in human resources capacity and participation

     •  Village workshops aimed at increasing awareness on implementation of CFAMP
     •  Conducting a national seminar to review the project progress
     •  Conducting various training courses and study tours
     •  Identify and implement relevant volunteer works for community development and environmental improvement
     •  Publication of reports and manuals and PR materials

Activity 5 : Rehabilitation and enhancement of coastal resources

     •  Establish and manage fish refugia
     •  Establish and manage Crab Bank
     •  Mangrove reforestation

Activity 6 : Fishing / fish handling technology improvement

     •  Placed in the lower priority and no activity carried out

Activity 7 : Project management meetings

     •  Conducting Steering Committee (SC) meetings once a year at minimum.
     •  Holding Project Implementation Committee (IC) meetings once every 4 months.  

Activity 8 : Project evaluation

     •  Project evaluation is taken place
     •  Publication of the project evaluation report

2.3 Component 3: International Training Courses on Coastal Fisheries Management for Fishery Managers and fisheries extension officers

Courses Arrangement

1. Objectives

     1) To extend the knowledge, skills and attitude of coastal fisheries managers at the central level and fishery officers at field level in the concept of sustainable coastal resources utilization and management

     2) To introduce and share knowledge/experience of SEAFDEC with collaboration of national DOF pilot projects in ICRM-PD, ICRM-PL and ICRM-SV in Thailand Malaysia and Cambodia respectively and other Coastal fishery management projects which are organized by DOF sectors and other fishery agencies, to the region.  

2. Activities for the year 2008

Activity 1: Two-week Regional Training Course on Coastal Fisheries Management for Fishery Managers of SEAFDEC's member countries. (6 - 20 May 2008 )

Objectives of the course:

     1) To extend knowledge and experience of the fishery managers of SEAFDEC's member countries on sustainable coastal resource utilization and management

     2) To introduce the practicable methods and approaches in coastal resource management in different conditions

     3) To introduce and share experiences of the Integrated Coastal Resource Management (ICRM-PD, ICRM-PL and ICRM-SV) projects of SEAFDEC/TD's and fisheries government pilot projects to the region , specially the ICRM-SV will be used as the case study and site visit for the training course in this year.

     4) To strengthen practical in competence in planning and implementing the applicable coastal fishery management plans.

Course content :

The training course will be conducted in English. Subjects dealing with coastal fisheries management concept, approaches and case studies.

The course will includes lectures, group discussion, and the pilot projects and case study visits. The elements of the course will consist of;

     •  Overview of Coastal Fisheries Management in ASEAN,
      •  Responsible Fisheries aspects in Southeast Asia ,
     •  Characteristic of Coastal Fisheries Resource and Management,
     •  Rights-base and co-management for coastal fisheries management,
     •  Integrated Coastal Resource Management : ICRM-PD, ICRM-PL and ICRM-SV in Thailand , Malaysia and Cambodia respectively
     •  Case study and the site visit on the Integrated Coastal Resource Management: ICRM-SV, in Cambodia .

Activity 2: Four-week Regional Training Course on Coastal Fisheries Management and Extension Methodology for Extension Officers of SEAFDEC' s member countries. (2 - 20 September 2008 )

Objectives of the course:

     1) To extend the knowledge and skills of extension officers of SEAFDEC member countries in the following areas:

     •  Coastal resource management
     •  Participatory approach for co-management of fishery resources
     •  Extension concept, methodology and participatory research method (PRA)
     •  Managerial and conflict resolution skill for managing fishery resources and local organization
     •  Communication and extension media production.

     2) To introduce and share experience of the SEAFDEC with collaboration of national DOF pilot projects in ICRM-PD, Chumporn province, Thailand , ICRM-PL, Lankawi , Malaysia and ICRM-SV, Sihanoukville , Cambodia . Specially the ICRM-SV will be used as the field site visit and case practical session on the PRA tool exercise.

Contents of the course:

     I: Innovative approaches to coastal fisheries management,

     II: Fishery extension concept, methodology for participatory management approach

     III: Essential skill for participatory research and management

     IV: Media production and communication process for extension work