Building Socio-Ecological Resilience to Coral Reef Degradation in the Islands of the Western Indian Ocean

Half a billion people directly utilise coral reefs for essential ecosystem services (ES) such as food and coastal protection, many of whom live within rural areas of the poorest developing countries. This dependence is especially pronounced across the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. Coral reefs have been experiencing major and sustained ecological degradation, exacerbated by climate change. The resultant changes to these ecosystems are potentially devastating to coastal communities.

This project was co-developed with stakeholders from around the WIO and the UK, and involves a team with interdisciplinary expertise in natural science (coral reefs and ecosystem services), social science including governance and development studies, environmental economics, psychology, geography, theology, arts (a blend of fine art and design), and health. The project is ambitious in scope and is anticipated to generate novel and innovative outputs.

The project aims to create a network of experts from local community, government, NGO and academic stakeholders from the UK, Mauritius, Zanzibar and other WIO islands to scope opportunities for using ES related research to define and refine strategies and priorities for building socio-ecological resilience to long-term change in coral reefs. The project will involve four interlinked activities that will draw on the diversity of expertise and disciplinary backgrounds of the project team, subcontractors and project partners:

(1) Strategies that are currently used to manage coral reefs and which are often assumed to build resilience to climate change impacts will be mapped and assessed. The extent to which the ES framework is applied will be identified and assessment made of how it could be more effectively used in future to support the design of such strategies.

(2) A workshop in Mauritius will involve stakeholders from Mauritius (including Rodrigues), Zanzibar, Madagascar, Comoros, Seychelles and Kenya. This will include assessment of i) perceptions of the role of community management and institutions, and actions needed to overcome barriers; ii) opportunities to incentivise action; iii) communication strategies for building resilience. The workshop will include interactive sessions to provide an in-depth analysis of risk (including differences between public and expert framings) and a visual arts approach to participatory mapping to create experiential learning and elicit the more nuanced and intangible aspects of perception, values and identities in the context of real world ecological risk. Drawing participant experience and expertise, a protocol of these activities (involving a film) for replication elsewhere and a synthesis report will be co-developed.

(3) The protocol will be piloted in Mauritius and Zanzibar to explore the socio-cultural risks associated with different community-specific resilience strategies and different groups within the community, in order to validate the synthesis report and promote further reflection and dialogue on risks and values associated with coral reefs. It is anticipated that the culturally sensitive approach will allow a better means of investigating localised knowledge, more diverse identities and the dynamics of subject formation.

(4) A UK workshop will bring together partners from Mauritius, Madagascar, Zanzibar and the UK to synthesise project outputs, focusing on identifying gaps that can be addressed using the ES framework and the potential for future UK-WIO collaborations, as well as reflecting on the project activities in terms of multi-disciplinary working, engagement with stakeholders and the lessons learnt from this process. The structure for a journal article together with initial draft text and a timetable for final submission will be developed to ensure an academic legacy from the work. The workshop will also provide a platform for the non-UK partners to present their work and access a wider network of potential UK collaborators.

Hundreds of millions of people rely on coral reefs to provide essential services such as food and coastal protection, and these ecosystems also contribute significantly to national economies through sectors such as tourism. Improving the resilience of communities and economies to the coral reef degradation expected as a result of climate change is therefore an issue of global importance. This project will be of benefit to those who need to assess the risks and benefits associated with different strategies for ensuring the essential ecosystem services provided by coral reef ecosystems continue to be provided under the challenges of climate change. This includes those involved in the management of coral reef resources, coastal protection, tourism, sustainable development, and the welfare and resilience of coastal communities.

The project is focused on the Western Indian Ocean region, and particularly the islands of Mauritius and Zanzibar, where beneficiaries will include: (1) Government agencies: the Ministry of Ocean Economy, Ministry of Fisheries, Mauritius Oceanography Institute, Ministry of Environment, Beach Authority, Ministry of Tourism, Tourism Authority, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development; the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries (Zanzibar), the National Environmental Management Council; (2) Non-Governmental Organisations: Reef Conservation, Eco-Sud, Mauritius Marine Conservation Society, Shoals Rodrigues; IFEES; and (3) Community groups Roches Noires Eco Marine, Anse La Raie Voluntary Marine Conservation Area Committee, the Cap Malheureux Fishers Association, and the Mwambao Coastal Community Network.

These stakeholders will participate in the project through attendance at the workshop and follow-up pilot activities, with the former also involving key stakeholders from government and the non-governmental sectors in Madagascar, Comoros, Kenya, and Seychelles. They will benefit from clear, independent scientific information that will improve understanding of the challenges, from a range of different perspectives, of building resilience to coral reef degradation and climate change. They will also benefit from the opportunity to share experiences from around the Western Indian Ocean, and to evaluate different strategies for practical action that have been used in coral reef management from around the world. In particular, the project will highlight novel approaches, by providing i) a template for the application of ecosystem services frameworks as a practical tool for developing actions, and ii) methods for interdisciplinary approaches to resilience strategies, including a tool box for assessing the more intangible aspects of perceptions and values associated with coral reefs and with the risks from climate change and strategies developed for building resilience. A key component of this toolbox will be a film, that will be used both as a training material to support stakeholders in future co-development activities and for directly engaging communities and eliciting their perceptions of changes in their environment.

The stakeholders will also benefit from being part of a strengthened interdisciplinary, international network, providing them with access to a range of academic expertise to support the implementation of specific strategies to build resilience within their local communities. Leveraging this nine month project, key beneficiaries will be invited to co-develop further collaborative and cutting-edge research on social-ecological resilience in coastal communities in the region, extending the impact of this scoping project through enduring interactions.

Wider dissemination of project information will also ensure benefits across the Western Indian Ocean region, including through global organisations working in the region such as the CORDIO, IUCN, WCS, and WWF.