Highlights in This Issue
- Active Portfolios Update
- Potential Portfolios
- Special Initiatives Update
Active Portfolios Update
Locally Managed Marine Areas Network
The Locally Managed Marine Area (LMMA) Network began in August 2000 when representatives from a number of projects across Southeast Asia and the Pacific came together at meetings in the Philippines and Fiji. All of the projects are working with local communities to establish marine protected areas to help conserve dwindling marine resources. The projects tentatively agreed to form a learning portfolio and to share data and information about their work under a defined social contract. Most of 2001 was spent developing a portfolio coordination team that could work with portfolio members to facilitate adaptive management at project and portfolio levels. In early 2002, the first clusters of projects in Fiji and in West Papua officially signed on as members of the portfolio. The Fiji group in particular has been very active, holding weekly meetings and bringing other projects and government officials into their local network.
At a recent LMMA Network meeting in the Cook Islands, the portfolio coordination team (PCT) completed the first draft of a learning framework for the portfolio (available soon at http://www.lmmanetwork.org). We also agreed to develop a sub-network based model for the portfolio that is based on the success we have had in Fiji and West Papua. Under this arrangement, individual countries (or other appropriate units) would form sub-networks. These networks would elect or appoint one or more individuals to represent them in the overall portfolio. Formation of sub-networks is now being explored in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Palau, and the Philippines. At the Cook Islands meeting, we also met with a number of project teams and worked with them to prepare formal presentations for the Global Biodiversity Fund (GBF) and South Pacific Regional Environmental Program (SPREP) meetings.
(To learn more about learning portfolios see http://fosonline.shannonrosedev.com.)
Fiji Locally Managed Marine Area Is Candidate for Equator Initiative Award
Following an international call for nominations in January, the Fiji Locally Managed Marine Area Network (FLMMA) has been chosen as one of the 25 outstanding projects nominated for the Equator Initiative Prize (http://www.undp.org/equatorinitiative). This award recognizes local community partnership initiatives that alleviate poverty through the sustainable use of biodiversity. Two PCT members have been invited to attend the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa in August and will be given a chance to showcase the project, learn from and interact with other communities, and engage in an extended dialogue with other major groups involved in the Summit. A short video of all the short-listed projects will be produced and televised on BBC’s “Earth Report” program. Congratulations FLMMA Team!
FOS Adaptive Management Meta Portfolio
Much of FOS’s work is focused on using adaptive management to improve projects and learn about specific strategies in learning portfolios. Practicing what we preach, we can also use the principles and process of adaptive management to examine and improve our adaptive management work itself. To this end, the adaptive management meta-portfolio is a portfolio of learning portfolios. The goals of the meta-portfolio are to analyze our experiences with existing projects and learning portfolios to learn:
Goal 1. How to do AM more effectively and efficiently at a project level
Goal 2. How to do AM more effectively and efficiently at a portfolio level
Our overarching hypothesis is that adaptive management at both project and program levels can be used to help individuals and organizations overcome failures and create more successful projects. FOS staff is currently working with our partners in the overall network to develop a learning framework for the Adaptive Management Meta Portfolio. This framework will serve as a guide for members of field-level learning portfolios to help them understand FOS data needs for the meta portfolio. As part of this framework, we are developing key hypotheses about the impact and process of adaptive management that we can test at project and portfolio levels.
Potential Portfolios
Private Nature Reserves in Latin America
FOS has been working with Jeff Langholz at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (http://www.miis.edu) to develop a learning portfolio on private nature reserves. The learning portfolio will look specifically at experiences with conservation easements in Latin America – most likely, South America. Caroline Stem, the FOS staff member working on this initiative, and Jeff have established contact with several interested institutions in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. Other organizations in Peru and Colombia have also expressed interest. MIIS submitted a letter of inquiry to the MacArthur Foundation in April. Unfortunately, MacArthur, although interested, did not request a full proposal. FOS and the Monterey Institute are currently discussing other start-up strategies, as well as modified approaches to fundraising that may include greater involvement of potential portfolio members in the design and fundraising phases. Although our geographic focus has been primarily South America, some Central American organizations (e.g., CEDARENA in Costa Rica and TNC/Guatemala) have expressed great interest in participating in the portfolio. In the coming months, we will review our strategy to determine if we will expand our geographic focus beyond South America. We would welcome any ideas, suggestions, or contacts you may have to offer as we explore funding possibilities.
National Environment Funds in Latin America and the Caribbean
FOS was invited to do a presentation on learning portfolios at a workshop sponsored by the Network of National Environmental Funds in Latin America and the Caribbean, RedLAC (http://www.redlac.org), held in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. RedLAC includes representatives of 24 National Environmental Fund organizations that finance conservation efforts and sustainable use of natural resources in their countries. Their overall mission is to set up an effective system of learning, strengthening, training, and cooperation with their members. The Bolivia workshop was part of RedLAC’s strategic planning process. Through this process, RedLAC has determined that they need to increase cross-project learning among its members and is very interested in the learning portfolio concept. During the month of July, FOS staff will engage in an e-mail discussion with Executive Committee members to assess RedLAC members’ learning interests and identify potential themes and tools/strategies that might be the core of a learning portfolio. Once we have a sufficient understanding of RedLAC needs, we hope to prepare a concept paper and, eventually, a proposal to present at their General Assembly in October, 2002 in Panama.
Hunting and Wildlife Trade
FOS and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) are working together to develop a plan for linking up projects in Asia, Africa, and Latin America that seek to combat the threats posed by bush meat hunting and the wildlife trade. FOS staff is working with Liz Bennett, who coordinates WCS’s task force on this problem, to develop an initial concept paper for a learning portfolio (a guide to developing a concept paper for learning portfolios will be available soon at http://fosonline.shannonrosedev.com). We have also jointly applied for funding for this work to the MacArthur Foundation. In the coming months, Richard will be attending WCS meetings in Latin America and Africa, where he and Liz will be presenting the portfolio concept to project teams.
Special Initiatives Update
WWF Gender and Population Review
In June, FOS completed a project working as a team member on a population and gender review organized by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The purpose of the review was to “increase the effectiveness of conservation action by identifying and elaborating when, where and how processes and tools for integrating population and gender considerations could be applied, in particular in the context of large scale conservation planning and implementation.” FOS’s main role was to help provide structure and rigor to the review, although the staff member assigned to the review, Caroline Stem, was also able to provide some technical input on population and environment issues. The review team recently presented its findings at a population and gender forum organized by WWF. The findings were well-received, and WWF staff continues to express an interest in a longer-term relationship to explore the possibility of a learning portfolio. WWF must first decide how/if they will move forward on population and gender activities. Depending upon the decisions made, they may come to FOS to discuss pursuing a learning portfolio on population and gender.
Consultative Group on Biological Diversity Review of M&E Efforts
FOS recently completed a project with the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity, CGBD (http://www.cgbd.org), a group of major environmental donors, to document approaches to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) within its member organizations. The review, headed up by Richard, Nick, and Janice, involved an e-mail based survey of CGBD members followed by telephone and face-to-face interviews with representatives, and the compilation and analysis of survey and case materials. The review was designed to address issues with both formal and informal M&E approaches that have been used within the CGBD membership. We documented organizations’ experiences with different M&E methods and techniques to identify approaches that CGBD members have found to be most effective and those that should be avoided. The final report, Investigating Best Practices in Monitoring and Evaluation, includes insights and lessons from CGBD members on opportunities and obstacles in conducting effective M&E in the portfolios they manage. It also includes samples of recommended resources for technical support, specific tools, manuals, “how-to” guides, articles, analyses, and examples to assist its membership in identifying and obtaining M&E resources. Richard and Nick presented the report findings and recommendations at the annual CGBD meeting in Canada in June.
TNC’s Measures and Audit Team
FOS has been working closely with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to help redesign their Conservation by Design (CbD) process for assessing success at sites and ecoregions. FOS first joined an internal TNC team in 2001. The team was working to develop an audit mechanism for their sites to help TNC develop a system for answering the questions, “Are we conserving what we say we are over the long term?” and “Are we making progress towards the conservation goals articulated in CbD?”. Nick and Richard participated as full members of this internal team, which developed and tested a field-based auditing framework for TNC’s site conservation planning. The team tested this audit framework at TNC sites in Cosumnes, California and Komodo, Indonesia.
In early 2002, this internal TNC group was reconfigured as the “Measures and Audit Team” and charged with reviewing and refining all of TNC’s systems for measuring and auditing conservation success. FOS has remained a formal member of this team. FOS staff is working closely with key TNC folks to develop an adaptive management process for sites and ecoregions that combines the best features of each organization’s existing systems. In particular, FOS is benefiting from TNC’s approach to ecological impact assessment, while TNC is benefiting from FOS’s approach to looking at the assumptions linking conservation targets to direct and indirect threats. It has been a very intellectually satisfying experience to discuss and explore key issues about adaptive management with a group of fellow M&E junkies! Much of the work of this team will be posted for public review at www.ConserveOnline.org.
Measuring Conservation Impact
Defining clear and practical measures of conservation success is one of FOS’s core objectives and a priority within the conservation community in general. We recognize, however, that most conservation organizations lack information and resources to help them define (1) practical approaches to impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation, and (2) appropriate indicators and indices.
FOS along with the Wildlife Conservation Society and Conservation International, received a grant from the Moore Foundation to help identify, synthesize, and make more accessible such information and resources. Although several FOS staff members are working on this initiative, Marcia Brown and Caroline Stem have taken the lead on reviewing and analyzing M&E literature from conservation and other related fields (development, public health, education, social services, and business). We believe that there is much to be learned from other experiences within and across disciplines. The products from this research will include: (1) a written report summarizing M&E approaches, the evolution of M&E in each field, and conclusions concerning key concepts in M&E; (2) an online database of the literature reviewed, with links to materials available on the Internet; and (3) an interactive database that allows users to arrive at a small set of indicators relevant to a specific project through a series of queries (taxonomic key).
Measures of Success in Spanish
One of the final publications funded by the Biodiversity Support Program prior to the program closing was Medidas de Éxito, the Spanish translation of Measures of Success: Designing, Managing, and monitoring Conservation and Development Projects by Richard Margoluis and Nick Salafsky, available from Island Press (http://www.islandpress.com). FOS assumed responsibility for managing the project to completion, which included the printing of 1000 publications and the distribution of copies to the BSP consortium partners (USAID, WWF, TNC, and WRI). FOS received and will disseminate 400 copies. An electronic version of the publication will also be available on the FOS website (www.FOSonline.org) in the near future.
The FOS Team
Marcia Brown
Janice Davis
Richard Margoluis
Nick Salafsky
Caroline Stem
Recent Comments