Efforts to integrate Socio-economic Monitoring with Biophysical Monitoring in in South Asia

Coastal communities rely on goods and services provided by coral reefs and related ecosystems for their livelihood and nutritional needs. These resources get degraded by over-extraction and harmful extraction techniques. It... [ view full abstract ]

Coastal communities rely on goods and services provided by coral reefs and related ecosystems for their livelihood and nutritional needs. These resources get degraded by over-extraction and harmful extraction techniques.

It was recognised in the 1990’s that managing marine ecosystem goods and services meant managing people who use and impact them. Hence the need to integrate socio-economic monitoring with biophysical monitoring and arrive at a holistic understanding of how the marine resources are used and impacted.  This information is deemed necessary for adaptive management and actions to be taken that would encourage compliance. GCRMN introduced a Socioeconomic Assessment and Monitoring manual in 2000 to complement biophysical monitoring efforts. Regional specific guidelines  for coastal managers in South Asia were introduced by 2008. In South Asia where poverty is an issue with coastal communities, we used participatory appraisal tools to ensure that the voices of the most disadvantaged people are also included. Visualisation techniques in conjunction with Focus group discussions were effective in creating joint learnings. These studies have been carried out at selected sites in India, Srilanka, Maldives and Bangladesh in 2002, 2011 and 2015. Special care was taken to integrate biophysical knowledge while conducting the community based socioeconomic assessments. This paper will discuss key learnings from these efforts.   

It will highlight the tools we found most effective in: 1. ensuring that no stakeholder group is left out  2.integrating socio-economic and biophysical monitoring, 3.Creating Joint learnings and 4. Communicating the knowledge to a wider audience.