Problems Analysis
Yagasu facilitated local communities to establish nurseries more that are close to the planting sites. The nursery works include filling soil in polybag and put the propagules in the plastic bags and mostly done by women. The main tasks of men collected propagules and transported into nursery sites. Among men and women on nursery works, there were youths (under 35 years). There were many contracts on nursery works that spread in the villages. The planting groups collected propagules from mother trees surrounding the villages. There were several species used for restoration such as Rhizophora mucronata, R. apiculate, R. stylosa, Avicennia marina, A. officionalis, A. alba, Bruguiera sexangula and B. gymnorhyza. The time to grow seedlings in the nurseries were 2 – 7 months with the criteria at least 4 leaves before ready planted in the field. Local community groups initially provided more than 30 million seedlings, and survival mangrove seedlings was around 70 – 90% in the nurseries, depending the species and nursery sites.
Public Engagement
Yagasu conducted 922 village- and district meetings and provincial workshops attended by 18,228 people to socialize our program and build local commitment and village policy endorsement. We agree to recruit “Panglima Laut” traditional person who in charge in fishery and marine issues in the sub-district as our stake-holder liaison with specific tusks to link with community groups and project monitoring.
We also conducted special meetings with technical institutions of Indonesian government to raise issues on preparations of planting mangroves; problems and constrains on cutting planted mangroves for intensive ponds; how synergize our program with government project plans and preparing workshops to invite multi-stakeholders.
Yagasu signed 10 years MoUs with 154 village governments and 198 community groups for mangrove protection and community development; and signed 5 years MoUs with 6 government institutions at provincial level (BBKSDA Aceh, BBKSDA Sumut, Dinas Kehutanan Aceh, Dinas Kehutanan Sumatera Utara, DLH Sumut and DLH Aceh).
Awareness Program
Yagasu conducted awareness programs using local cultural and tradition as a basis for education components for religious schools, women group and villagers. The attitude of local stakeholders to local’s species and forest conservation will be addressed using local wisdom. Changing local people attitudes was also be part of the campaign through informing the multiple values and benefits of mangrove ecosystem and intact forests including values of watershed services and prevention of natural disasters that frequently occurred in Aceh and North Sumatra.
The awareness programs and activities have showed an increase of appreciation and respect of local communities to their village issues on natural risk reduction due to direct participation on project implementation. The local people have realized that avoiding mangrove degradation and deforestation will give positive impacts such as improving their sustainable economic needs, creating new jobs and reducing risks of natural disaster/tsunami. It also improved of political-will of village, sub-district and district governments on how to manage the natural resources in the villages in sustainable ways through their legal commitments on VLP, MPA and VR.
Produce Variety of Awareness and Branding Materials
Yagasu has produced various awareness and branding materials in the form of posters, leaflets, booklets, stickers, banners, billboards, signboards, fact-sheets featuring species and forest conservation, green-livelihood development, and climate change mitigation and adaptation issues. The series editions of newsletter including recent project issues, community economic activities, short articles, human-animal relationship history, comic and forest monitoring activities were also produced and disseminated to communities, including to women groups.
Train Key Local Stakeholders and Project Staff
To increase the capacity of local stakeholders and project staffs, particularly on awareness component of the project, Yagasu conducted house trainings in Yagasu office and field trainings participated by stakeholders, project partners and project staff. Specific training was also conducted for the Green Teacher Indonesia at CBRU with the purpose to develop curriculum related to mangrove protection and climate change issues.
Implement Awareness Program
Yagasu conducted 290 awareness and environmental education programs that reach 5,800 people that include 2,455 men and 3,345 women. Targeted awareness programs aimed for decision makers, legislatives, civil society and concerned individuals are to expand understanding of values accruing mangrove forest biodiversity to increase local pride in and ownership of natural resources.
Multiple communication programs have been applied such as face to face meetings and workshop, religious/women group/school awareness activities, and media campaign through radio talk show and TV coverage. We conducted multi-level communication interventions, and targeting audiences at the village, sub-district, district, provincial and national levels. We also run specific awareness efforts through intensive consultations with key target audience for top-level decision makers who are currently deciding on species and forest conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation, green-economic development and land-use issues.
Participate Environmental Exhibitions
Yagasu participated in 39 national and provincial exhibitions to promote project activities and local community actions to wider public. The materials for exhibitions included success story of the project, community products, awareness materials, film and presentation.
International Workshop On Mangroves
Yagasu conducted an International Workshop on Mangrove for Climate Change Mitigation and Green-livelihoods. The workshop was as a forum to share and exchange researches, studies and concepts on mangrove, carbon, climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable livelihoods. The participants had an opportunity to visit the mangrove ecosystem and interact with the local people on the second day of the workshop. The workshop was attended by 65 people came from Indonesia, India, France, Korea and USA.
The workshop objectives were (a) to link donors/investors, governments and project developers that are interest to scale up the best practices of project activities on climate change mitigation and green livelihoods; (b) to learn from each project developer: number of ha mangroves restored and protected and CO2 stocks, failed and success stories and project impacts; (c) to share field best practice experiences on mangrove value creation activities: constraints and creative actions for sustainable management; (d) to learn from experts related issues regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation, carbon research and social economic impacts; (e) to engage participants in developing models and scenarios taking into consideration principles of sustainable mangrove management and green livelihoods development.
The workshop was not just a forum, but it was a laboratory for new approaches to co?building solutions. The participants (a) shared their experiences and explore innovative solutions which can be implemented in their projects and elsewhere, (b) broadened the horizons through exchange with field practitioners, business leaders, experts and inspiring people from all fields of work and from diverse countries, (c) took stock on which practices are effective and need changing, (d) contributed to building a lively community which will support your program in the long term. The workshop adopted a field?oriented approach: interactive field visits, study practical challenges and construct inventive solutions. Evening sessions also gave the participants an opportunity to share and explore new horizons with inspiring leaders and experts.
Train Communities on Natural Disaster Prevention
Learning from past traumatic experiences of Aceh’s tsunami, we committed to prevent disaster on various ways. Yagasu conducted 24 trainings on disaster prevention attended by 432 people (224 women and 208 men). The participants came from government institutions, local NGOs, village- and sub-district governments, school children and local stakeholders. The trainings were conducted in class and field visits. Training materials include how the type and character of coastal disaster, prevention action, disaster preparedness, disaster management, early warning and emergency help.