- One of the main recipient of the result of this study is the Seychelles National Parks Authority which are responsible for the management of the three project sites in which the study was undertaken. They will benefit from this study in a number of ways:
o They will get new benthic habitat maps for the area around St. Pierre Island and Ile Cocos along with quantitative data on the distribution of different bottom types in at the study locations.
o They will receive new data on the wet weight of macroalgae on reef sites within the Ste Anne Marine National Parks and how it varies over time. We believe that this is the first time that such data has been collected for these sites.
o New data on the effect of rubble stabilisation and macroalgae clearing on promoting survival of coral recruits. This information can be used for decision making and for prioritisation of activities concerned with coral reef conservation.
Anba Lao will continue to do surveys of these 62 sites every 2 years and will contribute data to the Seychelles National Coral Reef Network to be used in the preparation of status reports.
Notable Community Participation
Community participation in this project will be ensured through the involvement of the Seychelles National Parks Authority (SNPA), the main beneficiary of this project, in most of the project activities. Though the members of ABL have the full capacity to implement all of the project?s activities fully, SNPA will be involved since this project is being undertaken in 2 Marine National Parks. Additionally, the boat charter operators that bring tourists to snorkel at these 2 sites will be engaged so that they understand what the project is all about and can pass the information on to tourists using these areas.
Inovative Financial Mechanisms
In order for the project remains sustainable in the long-run, the actions will be implemented in collaboration with the Seychelles National Parks Authority (SNPA), which manages a number of Marine National Parks (MNPs) with sites that have been identified as non-resilient. Two pilot sites (Site 1 and 2) within 2 MNPs will be chosen for the component of the project that will be investigating the effect of rubble movement on the survival of coral recruits. Two additional sites will be selected in the Port Launay MNP (Site 3 and 4) for the component of the project investigating the effect of competition with macro-algae on the survival of coral recruits. Port Launay was selected as the pilot site for this component as the sites will require regular maintenance in terms of algal clearing, which will be too costly if undertaken at project site 1 and 2. As SNPA receives entrance fee to the parks, funds will be used in monitoring and maintenance of selected sites.
Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods
Recent surveys have shown that whether reefs were inside no-take marine reserves or not had no impact on the ecosystem trajectory they followed. As a result many reefs found within no-take reserves continues to show signs of further degradation and are currently classed as non-resilient. These reserve coral reefs are socio-economically important as they are extensively used by paying visitors for snorkelling. Consequently, they financially support the conservation actions of many marine reserves as well as the livelihood of people employed in the boat charter industry. Finding ways to return degrading reef to resilience is hence extremely important if these sites are to continue to attract visitors and provide sustainable livelihoods to the people. Additionally, the partnership with SNPA ensures that the work is of benefit to socio-economically important reef sites in the Seychelles upon which many people are dependent for their livelihoods.
Replication of project activities
The WIOMSA will work with the grantee to implement similar studies on selected sites of teh main island, Mahe
Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment
The project directly responds to the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP) ?Biodiversity? thematic area and GEF-SGP Seychelles Country Programme Strategy objective ?to reduce local threat to biodiversity?. It will provide a direct demonstration of how results from scientific research can be integrated in the management of coral reefs for improved resilience. It will build on the large amount of research that has been undertaken since 1994 on the factors affecting coral reefs in the Seychelles inner granitic islands and hopefully be a global model for replication. The project results will be disseminated widely.
Policy Impact
These scientific results will help to assess whether stabilisation of rubble bed and control of algal biomass on reef could be implemented on a wider-level in an effort to promote recovery of coral reefs that are currently classified as being non-resilient. This should form an important component in government policy on whether to fund and support such type of initiatives. It should also identify whether it is competition from macro-algae and movement of coral rubble that are the main demographic bottlenecks for the recovery of affected coral reefs in the Seychelles inner islands or whether there are other factors at play which are presently not being considered.
Planning non gef grant
This project has built capacity of staff members from the Seychelles National Parks Authority, who will now undertake a new Adaption Fund project on coral reef restoration
Capacity - Building Component
Training in technical components of the project will be done with members and volunteers on the project of which SNPA staff will also benefit for continued monitoring and maintenance of project sites beyond the project life span
Gender Focus
Working in the marine domain in the Seychelles was traditionally considered as a career for men; however there are an increasing number of women that are active in marine conservation today. Out of the 5 members of the Project Management Committee at least 2 will be women, which imply that women will be instrumental in guiding the implementation of this project. There is a great possibility that the administrative assistant who will be hired under this project will be a woman. She will have an influential role in the implementation of the project based on her proposed duties which are listed under Activity 3. Women and girls will also be targeted as part of the education and awareness campaign which will focus on providing information on the multiple threats that are faced by coral reefs today and what people can do to mitigate them
Project Results
Summary of scientific results
The expected scientific results of the project were to improve the understanding of the demographic bottleneck affecting the recovery of coral reefs at sites dominated by coral rubble and high densities of macro-algae. This result was partly achieved in that relevant data investigating what are believed to be two main bottlenecks to coral reef recovery were collected in a scientifically rigorous manner (please see Section 5 for more details). The results are mixed and could be related to small number of demonstration sites that we had under this project. Improving the level of replication and the length of the study could provide more conclusive results. Part of the results for this study was presented at the 11th WIOMSA Symposium held in Mauritius between 30th June and 6th July 2019. Data collected as part of this demonstration project is already contributing to the development of a larger scale project to replicate this study at more sites so that more conclusive results can be collected. The study has also given members of Anba Lao confidence to implement conservation projects and the team is already in the process of preparing its next proposal for funding.
6.2 Summary of community results
The community results of this project are outlined below:
- One of the main results was the training of young Seychellois in methods for identifying coral genera and in the deployment and maintenance of control and experimental study plots.
- As part of the field work the Anba Lao team interacted widely with the hire craft operators making use of these Marine National Parks as they were curious to learn about our study. The Anba Lao team took the opportunity to discuss with boat operators and show them pictures of the reef sites, the experimental plots and discuss the expected results of the study with them as well as how the results could be applied to strengthen management of coral reef habitats throughout the Seychelles. Comments from the boat operators were very positive and they wanted to know how they as a group that make use of the Marine National Parks could design and implement their own project to support management of these sites.
- Another result was to highlight the impacts being caused by anchor damage at the project sites which prompted the Seychelles Marine National Parks Authority to install new mooring buoys at St. Pierre, thereby reducing an important threat to marine biodiversity at this site.
- Tourists visiting the sites saw the work that was on-going and approached members of Anba Lao to talk about the work. They were very positive about the work and most of them claimed that they felt that the fees they pay to come to these sites should be used to fund such type of activities which can be used to guide management.
