Under the support of the Regional Partnership for the Conservation of Coastal and Marine Zone in West Africa (PRCM), Wetlands International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), held on 5th and 6th October 2015 in Dakar, a workshop for the development of a regional program on sustainable and concerted management of mangroves on the East Atlantic coast of Africa, in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Abidjan Convention.
Funded by Mava Foundation, Wetlands International and IUCN, have on the 5thand 6th October 2015 in Dakar worked on the development of a regional program on sustainable and concerted management of mangroves on the East Atlantic coast of Africa in the framework of PRCM in partnership with the Secretariat of the Abidjan Convention.
The objective of the Dakar meeting was to build consensus around a regional conservation program, sustainable management and monitoring of mangroves and to achieve the commitment of key partners. Sustainable and concerted management of mangroves in Africa remains a major concern for the PRCM and its founding organizations.
In his welcome address, Dr Ahmed Senhoury, Director of PRCM, recalled the importance of the mangrove ecosystem in ecological and socio-economical field for our states and communities through food security, and mangroves contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change. He expressed his satisfaction about the facilitation of PRCM for such initiatives.
Mr Richard Dacosta, program officer at the Abidjan management Convention, said since last year, his organization works to transform the Mangrove Charter into an Additionnal Protocol to the Abidjan Convention related to the sustainable and concerted on mangroves in Africa. ” We shall continue to support this process to ensure that the synergies that are needed to build the program at the regional level will be maintained ” said Mr. Dacosta.
Mr. Racine Kane, head of the IUCN mission in Senegal, stated that having a coherent mangrove program is more than a need. He magnified the work done with Wetlands International in the field of conservation in West Africa.
Idriss Deffry, Regional Coordinator of Marine and Coastal Programme for Central and West Africa of IUCN, stressed that this workshop provides an opportunity to reflect on the above projects and think about different time scales, spaces. ” It’s one of the only ways to change the impact of our interventions in support of nature at the regional level”, he stressed.
In his opening speech, Mr. Ibrahima Thiam, the regional director of Wetlands International Africa, said that after the results, methods and tools tested, it is useful to scale them. ” I was with some colleagues in this audience in a recent meeting held in Zanzibar on blue carbon initiative in Africa, one of the main conclusions for countries with mangrove forests, beyond political or traditional projects of conservation or restoration, is to explore the potential of carbon mangroves which we know is more important and larger than tropical forests we often talk about.”
And Mrs. Charlotte Karibuoye, Deputy Director West Africa of the Mava Foundation, to announce that the Mava is developing its 2016-2022 strategy in which mangroves are among the priority themes of the strategy in West Africa. She adds that ‘’the coherence and synergy of all initiatives must be strengthened. There is little connection between what is happening in the region and in other parts of the world such as Asia and America.”
After this workshop to develop the regional program on sustainable and concerted management of mangroves in Africa, a roadmap was defined and reflection continues for fundraising.