Local project team is local people who participates project plus meeting, survey, making plan this project mostly village authority join more than villagers. And participation local prople who are member of project team is closely implement the activities.
Protection area of preserve crocodile to reduce people disturb crocodile place and saving crocodile eggs they will have occasion increasing number population where is factor making biodiversity balance. This project can be create and promote to the tourism sector that can support activities to develop economic which combine for poverty reduction.
Significant Participation of Indigenous Peoples
The building pilot stream is a significant source for expansion the number of traditional Lao crocodile. Local project team can educate the process of management and save crocodile by this project as well.
Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment
The protective stream of crocodile about 2.5 ha of this project will be known by via the many meeting of the project and natural eco-tourism, any way other project that cooperate this project like WCS.
Inovative Financial Mechanisms
The spending of the project allocate on budget planning and providing to activities that connection to develop other issue that would be continue develop in the future.
Capacity - Building Component
Training record and GIS applying when survey including theory and practice makes project team understand note and management project desirable preservation crocodile. All training help project team is strengthening to monitoring and evaluation progressive of the project.
Study tour crocodile farm and management forest contribute project team generate idea to improve their project as well.
Project Results
This project plan to create the idea promoting tourism that is important factor for improving people livelihood which is feature reduces people disturb protective area of crocodile and making people have income for family.
The project successfully conducted socio-economic survey of the project at village level. Promoting the conservation of the endangered Siamese crocodile was also introduced at the targeted communities. The designated conservation area for the endangered crocodiles was also surveyed. Irrigation schemes for rice paddies use by the communities to strategically distributed flow of water between rice paddies fields and the crocodile conservation areas has also been established. Monitoring of crocodile population including on-site observation of the number of crocodile species and patrolling around the marsh is being carried out in a regular manner. A questionnaire survey was also conducted to know the awareness of the community in the importance of crocodile conservation. The questionnaire tries to identify arising conflict between the crocodiles and villagers and significant factors that contribute to the decline of its population. It was found by the project the survey was problematic due to unreliable respondents answers but the questionnaire survey was found valuable to discern general cause of human and crocodile conflict. Difficulties in the project implementation include slow progress in planned activities due to prolonged flooding in the project site. Difficulty in collecting overall socio-economic data was due to the work schedule of the respondents making it a partial and tentative survey. Socio-economic survey by District Agriculture Office and Laos Wildlife Conservation Association will be used to evaluate products derived from the lake and products that are used by the communities that may indicate causes of the conflict that has lead to crocodile population decline. The 72.11 hectares of marsh land at the vicinity of three villages would be protected and promote the increase of biodiversity around the marshland. Ultimately, habitat will be made as protected areas and restrict any extractive activities, this would include restriction in the collection of forest products. The district government would like to establish the marshland as wildlife sanctuary. In total, there are 122 families comprised of 831 people of whom 397 are women of two ethnic groups (99% Lao Loum and 1% Katang). Socio-economic data of 93 families indicates that 41% of the families are considered high income, 38 families are medium income and 21% are considered poor or low income. To promote environment awareness the project conducted small theater and games that depicts importance of crocodile conservation to the communities. This play creates problem solving on how to protect crocodile through community led initiative. It also focuses the conservation of habitat of the endangered crocodile and the importance of marshland to climate change. The ultimate focus of the theater is to stimulate collective conservation initiative to protect natural resources as a whole and promote sustainable use. A film showing was also carried out to encourage wildlife protection targeting children in the community. The project team has managed to map the habitat of crocodile and signage was placed along the wildlife sanctuary. The surveys indicate that the size of three main lake is approximately 72.11 hectares. During counting survey in the month of October to December 2012, there were 23 crocodiles spotted in the area. The preparation for wildlife tourism in the marsh include provisioning of irrigation for Kot Kuang Lake, protection of crocodile nesting spot, care for the eggs that has been collected i.e. incubation, hatching and raring of hatchlings. The project is also planning to construct observation tower to promote wildlife spotting and would also serve as look out during patrolling. A local folklore book about crocodile is also also being distributed at the village to stimulate awareness on the importance of crocodile in the marsh environment.
