The course for the senior Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers as MPA managers is designed with enough flexibility to be adapted to different requirements of training institutions and participants. Ideally, it is to be delivered as series of three one-week trainings, where all the three trainings should be completed within one year. However, the three trainings can also be implemented as stand-alone trainings if the participants fulfil the minimum pre-requisites for each of the stand-alone Trainings.
The first one-week training is to be organized as a field expedition to selected coastal / marine protected areas to facilitate participants in exploring and understanding coastal and marine Ecosystems and also getting first-hand information on various issues and challenges associated with managing these ecosystems.
The second one-week intensive training course facilitates participants in further developing their knowledge and skills on managing coastal and marine biodiversity and MPAs, including assessment and monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem services, interlinkages with climate change and disasters, coastal and marine related laws and policies, mainstreaming tools, leadership and communication. The pre-requisites for this training is that the participants should have a good exposure to coastal and marine ecosystems in general, and marine protected areas in particular.
The third one-week specialized training focuses on effective management of coastal and marine protected area, where participants specialize in management effectiveness evaluation of the MPAs. The pre-requisites for this training is that the participants should have an excellent understanding of the key issues related to managing coastal and marine ecosystems; and they would have attended at least one training course on coastal and marine biodiversity / ecosystems.
First-level Training: Training Expedition on Coastal and Marine Biodiversity for MPA Managers By the end of the First-level training the participants:
Second-level Training: One-week Intensive Training on Coastal and Marine Biodiversity and MPA Management By the end of the Second-level training the participants are able to:
Third-level Training: Specialized Training on Management Effectiveness Evaluation of MPAs By the end of the Third-level training the participants are able to:
Module 1: An introduction to coastal and marine biodiversity
This module serves as the foundation of the course by providing the basic concepts of biodiversity at the genetic, species and habitat levels, focussing on the examples and peculiarities of the coastal and marine ecosystems.
Module 2: Coastal and marine Ecosystem Services and their Value
This module facilitates participants looking into the overall development agenda via Global Sustainable Development Goals, the concepts of sustainability, and sustainable livelihoods and its interlinkages with the ecosystem services. Concept of ecosystem services and their value is the central theme of this module
Module 3: From Landscape to seascape
This brief but very important module provides an overview of the ecological, socio-economic and political context that make coastal and marine ecosystem management different from the management of terrestrial ecosystems. The module also summarises the key ecosystem characteristics of coastal and marine ecosystems.
Module 4: Assessment and monitoring of coastal and marine biodiversity and relevant issues
This module provides an overview of different coastal and marine ecosystems, critical marine habitats, their importance and assessment, and describes selected assessment methodologies of different critical habitats and different species found in coastal and marine ecosystems. The module ends with an overview of stakeholder mapping and analysis for effective MPA management.
Module 5: Sustainable Fisheries Management
This module provides the much needed information on basics of fisheries management, and principles and practices of sustainable fisheries management in and around marine protected areas. Apart from providing useful case studies on the subject, this module also covers challenges and trade-offs associated with protection-oriented coastal management, synergies with MPAs and livelihood security.
Module 6: Marine and Coastal Protected Areas
This module provides the much needed information on basics of marine protected areas (MPAs) and provides insights into the differences between MPAs and terrestrial protected areas, special conditions that affect the management of MPAs, and the categories and types of MPAs. This module covers the key issues of community participation and the role of indigenous communities in managing the MPAs and in coastal and marine biodiversity management. The module also contains information on different types of MPAs in India, their locations and on the benefits and challenges that management of MPAs involves.
This module gives an outline of the governance, legal and policy framework for managing coastal and marine ecosystems, which has been presented in two sections. The first section presents global conventions and guidelines that provide a framework to the maritime countries to draft national policies and legislation for conservation and management of coastal and marine habitats and species. The second section provides an overview of the major policies, law, rules and guidelines in India.
Module 8: Coasts, climate change, natural disasters and coastal livelihoods
The module provides an overview of the concepts of climate change and natural disasters and the related risks that they pose to coastal and marine biodiversity and ecosystems. The module further explores the impacts of climate change and natural disasters on coastal livelihoods and their management options using examples and cases. The module also focuses on the very important issues of possible synergies and trade-offs between the measures taken towards climate change management, coastal and marine biodiversity conservation, coastal livelihoods and coastal disaster management.
Module 9: Tools for Mainstreaming: Impact assessment and spatial planning
This module provides the conceptual background and introduction of mainstreaming biodiversity. To ensure that biodiversity-related issues and concerns become a part of the larger development planning process in the country, there is a need to incorporate it into policies, strategies and action plan. There is also a need to use science-based tools to understand the impact that projects can have on the environment and ensure that spatial planning incorporates measures for conservation of coastal and marine biodiversity. This module provides the basic concepts and examples of such tools, knowledge of which is useful for marine protected area managers.
Module 10: Change Management and connectedness to nature
This module takes up the prioritized global competencies identified for marine protected area (MPA) managers for effective communication with key stakeholders and for an effective cross-sector dialogue. The module elaborates a selected set of such competencies such as connectedness to nature and ecological consciousness, communication skills, leadership qualities and stakeholder engagement approach.
Module 11: Communicating Coastal and Marine Biodiversity
This module will help the MPA managers understand how media looks at coastal and marine conservation issues. Since conservation is not a media priority topic and MPAs come into news only when an accident happens, the module will help managers to gain knowledge and skills for effectively engaging media on conservation issues. The module will introduce different tools for media relations, explaining their strengths and limitations. It will also discuss how to use these tools during a crisis communication situation.
Module 12: Effective management Planning of coastal and marine protected areas
This module provides an overview of the management experiences in both terrestrial and marine environments. A description of the elements of management plans, guidelines for effective protected area management and key indicators form the major part of the learning from this module. Case studies on management effectiveness evaluation (MEE) help participants in applying concepts and guidelines in real life cases.
© 2014 IGBP. All Rights Reserved.
Site By: Virtualpages
