The Rufford Small Grants Foundation s13

The Rufford Small Grants Foundation

Final Report ------

Congratulations on the completion of your project that was supported by The Rufford Small Grants Foundation.

We ask all grant recipients to complete a Final Report Form that helps us to gauge the success of our grant giving. The Final Report must be sent in word format and not PDF format or any other format. We understand that projects often do not follow the predicted course but knowledge of your experiences is valuable to us and others who may be undertaking similar work. Please be as honest as you can in answering the questions – remember that negative experiences are just as valuable as positive ones if they help others to learn from them.

Please complete the form in English and be as clear and concise as you can. Please note that the information may be edited for clarity. We will ask for further information if required. If you have any other materials produced by the project, particularly a few relevant photographs, please send these to us separately.

Please submit your final report to [email protected].

Thank you for your help.

Josh Cole, Grants Director

------

Grant Recipient Details

Your name Rodrigo Villate

Educating people for a local monitoring program of the Cana Project title coral reef ecosystem at the Corn Islands, Nicaragua

RSG reference 69.09.09

Reporting period Final report

Amount of grant £5627

Your email address [email protected]

Date of this report

1. Please indicate the level of achievement of the project’s original objectives and include any relevant comments on factors affecting this. a N a P a F u c c c a

Objective Indicator o Comments h h h l r t l t i i i y e e e i a v v v l e e e l y d d d

Inform and Local dive X Three different meetings were held with train local shops, local the major from the municipality, one to stakeholders authorities present the project and ask for his for a long term and other approval and participation, another to monitoring stakeholders show preliminary results, and a final to programme of participate solve a situation regarding migratory the Cana coral during the issues. No letter of commitment was reef ecosystem. workshops signed between the project coordinator and and the municipality. Additional interviews. meetings were held with Municipal services to coordinate clean-up activities. Further information about these activities in the comments for objective 3. Two different reunions were held with the local dive shops from Little Corn Island to present the project and invite them to participate. They showed interest but did not participate in any way; no monitoring sites were selected around Little Corn Island and no additional contact was made with local actors from this island. Informal gatherings were held with different hotel, restaurants and touristic services shop owners searching for local allies. From these reunions some fund raising was achieved, Different formal and informal meetings were held with different artisanal fishermen from around Big Corn Island. Information about fishing grounds and lobster areas was obtained. -At least five x Five different local actors, representing local actors different sectors from the community, are certified as were trained as open water divers for open water monitoring purposes. Fishermen, local divers with the women and representatives from the capacity for municipality participated in the training monitoring sessions. Never the less at the end only activities. two local actors continued and finished the complete training. Those that did not finalised the training abandoned because of different personal reasons and one was expelled from the training due to irresponsible attitude. We could say, because of this desertion that the objective was not fully achieved although the diving courses were all held Establish the - At least three x Four sites were selected, but not biological base different necessarily in a participatory way. The line and monitoring sites were selected according to easy implement the sites are access, biological/ecological relevance, monitoring selected in a position in the barrier and frequency of programme for participatory use (either by fishermen or by diving live cover way with local operators). Local authorities did not percentage, fishermen, participated during the selection of the bleaching and diving schools sites, and there was a low participation focal species and local from local fishermen. with local authorities. stakeholders. -A sound x The methodology had to change twice. scientific base First the tripod for the camera did not line for adjusted for an easy use so we had to monitoring build a smaller quadrant and add some purposes is sampling points. Once our camera established in flooded we had to change again the the Cana reef methodology since our analysis was ecosystem. done by photo interpretation with the aid of computer software. The change implicated more time underwater because we had to do the analysis under the water. There was no opportunity to do monitoring dives every 3 months, funds only were sufficient to establish the baseline (mostly due to the loos of the camera). Playa, anastasia, hoyo blanco and blowing rock are the monitoring sites. Different live coral cover % was obtained for every site. Blowing rock is an oceanic site with a high live coral cover (67%), but small reef area. Playa is a site with a low coral cover (less than 20%), close to a main fishermen beach (place where fishermen “park” their boats) with a high influence from sediments, contamination and fishing activity. Anastasia is a shallow water site located at the northern section of the reef, with a big influence from strong currents. It has a good live coral cover (35%). Hoyo blanco is a common diving site for any level; it has a live coral percentage of 30%. Bleaching was found in playa, Anastasia and hoyo blanco, not in blowing rock. Few dives contemplated focal species, nevertheless spiny lobster (Pnulirus argus), yellow tail (Ocyurus chrysurus) and barracuda (Sphyraena picuda) were chosen as focal and indicator species. Increase - At least 50% x Only two field trips were done with environmental of the local students from more than 50% of the awareness with schools local schools. Nevertheless we consider local participate in that our indicator was just partially community and one of the achieved since we had the goal of at schools. guided least 8 field trips. environmental field trips. - Main x The municipality has a yearly round touristic campaign to clean up the principal beaches are touristic beaches and the main road. cleaned during Nevertheless the garbage that gets to social these beaches comes from the ocean communal and not from the community, for that activities reason there is a continuous garbage (clean up). arrival to the different beaches. As a At least 40% of project we participated in some of the the main road clean-up sessions organised by the is cleaned municipality. during social communal activities (clean up). Garbage x No garbage collectors were installed at collectors are all. installed in two of the main touristic beaches. - Local radio x The campaign from the municipality stations includes this kind of diffusion. participate in the diffusion of the information from the project.

2. Please explain any unforeseen difficulties that arose during the project and how these were tackled (if relevant). The political situation between Colombia and Nicaragua was not foreseen at any stage of the project. It had an impact because of the tense relation that aroused between the municipality and the migratory system on the island with the principal investigator, whose nationality is Colombian. At a moment the tense situation forced our principal investigator to leave the island.

3. Briefly describe the three most important outcomes of your project.

The scientific base line is the most important outcome, then we have the interest that our project had over the local population who donated inputs for the project, we did not expected that. Another impact that was important was our first communication with the local authorities whom showed great interest in the proposition of establishing a marine protected area. Nevertheless this was overshadowed by political interference.

4. Briefly describe the involvement of local communities and how they have benefitted from the project (if relevant).

There are two types of benefits for the local community, first the local actors that were trained as open water divers received a direct benefit from the project, second the community benefited from our collaboration during some of the clean-up sessions. However, the real benefit for the community would have been the establishment of a marine protected area. We did not have the opportunity to give the continuity to this initiative for different reasons.

5. Are there any plans to continue this work?

There are no plans to continue due to the political and labour conditions that changed the context for the field team.

6. How do you plan to share the results of your work with others?

7. Timescale: Over what period was the RSG used? How does this compare to the anticipated or actual length of the project?

The RSG was used from April 2010 to April 2011.

8. Budget: Please provide a breakdown of budgeted versus actual expenditure and the reasons for any differences. All figures should be in £ sterling, indicating the local exchange rate used.

Item Budgeted Actual Difference Comments Amount Amount Objective 1. Inform and train local stakeholders for a long term monitoring programme of the Cana coral reef ecosystem. *These headings for the overall span of the project. Feeding* 617 679 62 Since our research assistant was unable to work during the diving activities more time was required for this objective. Ten additional days were calculated for the Rufford funds, but more days were required. Also, as the assistant did not Lodging* 772 864 92 stay in the field for the proposed time, some of the budget proposed for her in this item was used for the field investigator to extend his time on the island to fulfil objective 2. Fundación YANAMA and Nautilus Dive School gave funds to cover for some of the extra expenses that the budget from Rufford funds could not cover. Transportation* 508 508 0 No comments. (round trips from Costa Rica to Corn Island, Nicaragua). Research 616 308 308 Research assistant got pregnant and could assistant salary* not continue working with the project for the proposed time. She only worked for 35 days during clean up and environmental education activities. Pregnancy prevents diving activity, no other assistant was contacted. The money was used to cover some of the additional costs of the diving activities. PADI learning 109 109 0 Five local actors were trained as PADI packs. open water divers with the capacity to continue with the proposed monitoring activities. Nevertheless they were trained to build the quadrant and to take pictures, but not to analyse the data. Since the Open water 201 201 0 camera that we had for the project course. flooded the monitoring activities had to be reformulated. Objective 2. Establish the biological base line and implement the monitoring programme for live cover percentage, bleaching and focal species with local stakeholders. Fuel for diving 868 1240 372 Due to the loss of the camera we had to activities and invest more time under the water to environmental establish a scientific base line for education. monitoring purposes. Less environmental Subsistence for 432 617 185 activities were carried on also to fulfil with local team biological objectives. Some of the additional costs were covered by the unforeseen expenses budget (from fundación YANAMA, £319) and from personal funds (£29). The rest of the additional costs for this activity were covered with the unforeseen expenses budget from Rufford (£319). Scuba tanks and 864 1234 370 In the difference column is shown weights additional costs that were partially covered with funds from the Rufford grant that were not used in what was proposed. Scuba gear for 200 0 200 Since the research assistant did not field investigator participate in the diving activities there and assistant. was no need to rent or buy any equipment for her. The money was used to cover some of the additional costs of the diving activities. Survey tools. 60 60 0 The project received some additional funds in materials from a local hardware store since the first quadrant methodology did not served the purposes of the monitoring programme. There is no possibility to estimate the amount since they gave the materials without telling how much the amount was in money. Objective 3. Increase environmental awareness with local community and schools.

Environmental 60 60 0 The project received additional funds for education this objective from local schools, materials. restaurants and some hotels. Unforeseen 319 319 0 It was used to cover some of the expenses additional costs from objective 2. Total 5627 6139

A breakdown of the additional costs from diving activities is shown below. Also is shown how these costs were covered. Item Additional Funds used to Difference Comments cost cover additional costs Additional cost for diving, 927 NA subsistence of local team and tanks and weights. Additional cost for lodging 62 NA

Additional cost for feeding 92 NA

Scuba gear for field NA 200 investigator and assistant. Research assistant salary* NA 308

Unforeseen expenses from NA 319 Rufford Unforseen expenses from NA 319 Fundación YANAMA Total 1081 1146 65 The difference was covered by personal funds.

9. Looking ahead, what do you feel are the important next steps?

N/A 10. Did you use the RSGF logo in any materials produced in relation to this project?

Just for the presentation to different audiences, but we did not produce any materials.

Did the RSGF receive any publicity during the course of your work?

During the whole time we publicly said that the funds for the project came from RSGF.