Overview and objectives

Summary:

Mangrove ecosystems cover a major part of the Bissau-Guinean coastal zone and the services they provide to the local population are extremely valuable. However, these ecosystems are at risk and face…

Mangrove ecosystems cover a major part of the Bissau-Guinean coastal zone and the services they provide to the local population are extremely valuable. However, these ecosystems are at risk and face several challenges. In the past, many mangrove areas were turned into rice fields by the local population. During the independence war of Guinea Bissau (1963-1974), many of these mangrove rice fields were abandoned but they were never restored, leading to both mangrove natural habitat and land degradation, and their respective impacts in terms of loss of biodiversity, decrease in natural productivity and local food insecurity.

Objective:

In response to the above challenges, the objective of the proposed project is to “support the restoration and rehabilitation of degraded mangroves ecosystems functionality and services for enhanced…

In response to the above challenges, the objective of the proposed project is to “support the restoration and rehabilitation of degraded mangroves ecosystems functionality and services for enhanced food security and climate change mitigation”. The overall strategy is built around policy influence and knowledge sharing which will lead to replication and scaling up of the approaches and results. It is structured into four components. The first component will support knowledge-based policy development and adoption that promotes mangrove and forests restoration. The second component of the project, promoting a participatory land use planning and management approach at the landscape level, focuses on the restoration and rehabilitation of degraded land in mangrove areas. The third component will contribute to improving the institutional and financial context of mangroves and forests restoration in Guinea Bissau. It will strengthen the national stakeholders’ capacities for fundraising, scaling-up and replicating restoration initiatives on wider landscape in other regions of the country based on lessons learnt and successful approaches experimented in the field by the project. Lessons learned from the three component will feed in the fourth component, which is focusing on the project monitoring and evaluation, as well as on knowledge management.
The outcomes of the projects are as follows:
• Outcome 1.1: The three targeted mangrove ecosystems benefit from a restoration strategy;
• Outcome 2.1: Traditional knowledge and local natural resources management systems are recognized and integrated in the restoration of mangrove and the rehabilitation of rice fields;
• Outcome 2.2: Local communities’ livelihood resources are sustainably improved;
• Outcome 3.1: Bissau-Guinean institutional and coordination capacities are strengthened in order to scale-up and finance restoration; and
• Outcome 4.1: The project is implemented according to results-based management principles, lessons learned are disseminated within The Restoration Initiative and applied to future operations.