Conservation Strategy

Competency of people determines the fate of the organizations in any endeavor. This study assessed the levels of competencies of people involved in a conservation strategy in the form of a marine protected area (MPA) and a Bantay Dagat (BD) networks in the Province of Batangas. It aimed to formulate a capacity development program that is tailor-fitted to needs assuring the success of this strategy. The study used purposive sampling method in the conduct of survey, key informant interviews (KII) and focus group discussion (FGD) with seventy-nine (79) respondents, sixteen (16) are senior managers, thirteen (13) are skilled workers, forty (40) are MPA stakeholders and 10 are technical specialist respectively. The study used statistical tools such as frequency distribution, percentage, weighted mean and Chi-square. Findings revealed that Level of competencies of all MPA managers and BD in planning and communication are high while the level of competencies of some MPA managers and BD are low to moderate in financing, enforcement and monitoring and evaluation. Stakeholders were satisfied in the competencies of MPA managers and BD in terms of planning and communication and moderately satisfied in terms of financing, enforcement and monitoring and evaluation (M&E). Difference on the level of competencies of MPA manager and BD in knowledge in enforcement and M&E was significant when grouped according to their age. Problems, issues, and challenges fall under: Fiscal

Most of multi-use species are declining in the wide habitat in spite of the variety of the conservation recommendations formulated by researchers. This may be due to the fact that a large part of researches focused on their socio-economic importance than the conservation of those species. Pentadesma butyracea is a multi-uses tree species that occurs from Sierra Leone to Gabon in dense Guineo-Congo rainforest and in gallery forests in the Dahomey-Gap of the dry corridor. This work used 56 studies to synthetize the importance of Pentadesma butyracea, enumerate the main threats to species persistence and test if probability of suggesting conservation strategies varied according to main fields of research, the conservation focus and the statement of conservation aim in the study. Our synthesis showed that although 68.75% asked conservation questions, only 43.75% suggested strategies for conservation of Pentadesma butyracea species and/or its habitat, gallery forests. We found 11 combinations of disturbances and 3 isolated disturbances which can simultaneously occur in the wild. We recommended for Pentadesma butyracea and it habitat effective conservation to limit gallery forest width reduction and fragmentation, to enforce the law regarding the minimum distance between farmer field and the gallery forest. Studies on multi-uses trees species must explicitly involve the viability of remnant populations and set the threshold viable habitat size. We also recommend to disentangle drivers of Pentadesma butyracea populations decline using update and accurate mathematical and statistical tools.