Project Detail

Video Proposal titled: “Indigenous Community Management of Shared Landscape Resources in San Miguel”

“Indigenous Community Management of Shared Landscape Resources” advances the understanding of the inter- connectedness of watersheds supporting a holistic approach to indigenous communities' livelihoods and people Communities have viewed freshwaters as an indefinite resource and have done little to improve freshwater health. Research indicates that only 3% of freshwater is readily accessible by humans. As population grows the consumption of potable water will increase, demanding we safeguard the source of our freshwaters.

Project goal: To create awareness and build capacity and understanding of the importance of freshwater
ecosystems and impacts to the marine life, formalize the establishment of a ‘community conserved area’ by 2018.

Project objectives: To design and deliver sessions to key stakeholders and CBO partners, to promote the understanding of watersheds, riparian buffers, freshwater wildlife habitats, and to enhance conservation measures including establishment of an important conserved area that support indigenous communities’ livelihoods.

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Project Snapshot

Grantee:

C' AC' ALENEL CAR SA NIMA (RIVER FISH PROTECTORS)

Country:

Belize

Area Of Work:

Biodiversity

Operational Phase:

OP6 - Y3 (Jul17 - Jun 18)

Grant Amount:

US$ 25,000.00

Co-Financing Cash:

US$ 1,250.00

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 28,773.75

Project Number:

BZE/SGP/OP6/Y1/ICCA-GS/BD/2017/11

Start Date:

9/2017

End Date:

12/2019

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

Project Characteristics and Results

Gender Focus

Both women and men were involved in the consultation, and development of the project proposal, and as such both men and women, including youths, are involved in all the activities.

Significant Participation of Indigenous Peoples

San Miguel is a indigenous community. The activities that will be carried out to include significant indigenous participation are" scholarships, Rio Grande River Fair, sessions on the importance of riparian forests, and exchange visits.

Project sustainability

Sustainability pertains to the concept that the project’s environmental, social and economic benefits will continue outside and beyond the project’s domain. The evaluation revealed that in general, farmers and women have increased awareness of the role that intact riparian forests, clean water and improved farming practices have on healthy watersheds and on livelihoods of indigenous communities. In the case of participating women, this increased awareness is already being manifested in less garbage being thrown in the river. The increased awareness is further enhanced by the fact that young people are also more actively involved in related activities and continue to benefit from CCSN’s scholarship program. At the same time, project beneficiaries recognize that the need exists for ongoing awareness activities targeting other women in the village. While some project activities, especially the exchange visit to Guatemala were designed in part to catalyse economic sustainability, such is not guaranteed due to the fact declining market availability for organic cacao, which many farmers produce, may cause them to lose interest in sustainable farming practices. To this end, sustainability of the project was rated as being Satisfactory.

Capacity - Building Component

The grantee partner has already successfully implemented a GEF SGP project before, and have the capacity to implement projects. As part of the project, they will be conducting a computer training.

Policy Impact

The intended result of this project is to ensure adherence to all the terms of the license granted to CCSN for the protection of the Riparian Forest of the Rio Grande River. In addition, to establish and demarcate a community conserved area along with a map showing the community shared resources.

Replication of project activities

The project was relevant to the community of San Miguel, CCSN and to the GEF SGP. Indigenous communities in Belize are dependent on forest and water resources for their livelihood, thus elements of the project such as education for children and creating opportunities to strengthen the involvement of women in natural resource management certainly warrants consideration for replication. The evaluation revealed that while the need exists in San Miguel for ongoing awareness, at this stage the organization should prioritized institutional strengthening.

Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment

The project will be conducting exchange visits with Guatemala, and there will be a Rio Grande River Fair which will be used to promote public awareness of the project and its importance.

Notable Community Participation

Yes. This project aims to increase the educational opportunities of youths from the community of San Miguel by providing book scholarships to secondary school students. Improvements to the Resource centre will be carried out to increase the availability of computers for student's access.

Project Results

Impact/Goal
As noted in Section 4, intended impact (goal) of the project was “to create awareness and build capacity and understanding of the importance of freshwater ecosystems and impacts to the marine life”. The achievement of the goal would be measured by the number of participants attending the awareness activities. Drawing from targets for lower level indicators such as ‘at least 80% of the desired 20 farm owners participate in each knowledge sharing sessions to be facilitated in Q`eqchi and ‘25 women participate in river tour’, the conclusion is that there were some progress towards meeting the goal of the project.
Purpose/Outcome The purpose/outcome of the project was to “enhance understanding of watersheds including: riparian buffers, freshwater wildlife habitats, and improve conservation measures that support indigenous communities’ livelihoods through discussion session to key stakeholders and CBO partners”. The degree of attainment would be measured by intact riparian forest, better agricultural practices, improved working collaboration with CBO’s resulting in joint activities. The project was able to achieve some success in meeting its purpose. For example, the riparian forest is relatively intact, while farmers are not necessarily implementing new agriculture practices, they are now more cognizant of the need for sustainable farming systems and there is ongoing exchange of information with other CBOs in the region.
Outputs
The project had a total of twelve outputs, with the logic of the project being that each output would be delivered based on a corresponding activity. The rating of each output is presented in Table 1 below (second column) with the justification for the rating being given in the third
column.

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