{"id":5775,"date":"2014-04-24T13:00:19","date_gmt":"2014-04-24T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bvblog.wpengine.com\/?p=5775"},"modified":"2014-04-28T16:23:22","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T15:23:22","slug":"theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/en\/theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management\/","title":{"rendered":"A theory of change: communities think critically about pathways to sustainable management"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueventures.org\/blue-forests-team\/cicelin-rakotomahazo.html\">Cicelin Rakotomahazo<\/a>, blue forests socioeconomic scientist, Madagascar<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A few months ago, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueventures.org\/conservation\/blue-forests.html\">blue forests<\/a>\u00a0team set out to facilitate\u00a0a &#8220;Theory of Change&#8221; exercise\u00a0with communities from\u00a0nine villages in\u00a0the Bay of Assassins, in the Velondriake <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueventures.org\/conservation\/locally-managed-marine-areas.html\" target=\"_blank\">locally managed marine area<\/a>\u00a0in southwest Madagascar.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0Bay of Assassins\u00a0is known as the lungs of Velondriake&#8217;s\u00a0conservation activities, thanks to its\u00a0diverse range of marine habitats\u00a0including shallow reef flats, beautiful mangrove forests and seagrass beds. It&#8217;s consequently home to the majority of Velondriake\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueventures.org\/conservation\/aquaculture.html\" target=\"_blank\">sea cucumber and seaweed farming<\/a> projects. It&#8217;s located about six hours 4&#215;4 drive\u00a0north of Toliara (the regional capital), and about one hour south of Andavadoaka, BV&#8217;s primary field site in southwest Madagascar.<\/p>\n<p>What is a &#8220;Theory of Change&#8221; (ToC? As the socioeconomic scientist\u00a0for the blue forests team, I&#8217;m now able to answer that question! After\u00a0several months of reviewing literature\u00a0and discussing with my colleagues, I would now define it as a <a href=\"http:\/\/mandenews.blogspot.co.uk\/2012\/04\/criteria-for-assessing-evaluablity-of.html\" target=\"_blank\">description of a sequence of events that is expected to lead to a particular desired outcome<\/a>. ToC\u00a0has been used for more than 20 years across multiple disciplines, but has recently been adapted by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rare.org\/\">RARE <\/a>to better link social change to biodiversity threat reduction.<\/p>\n<p>In our\u00a0context, it has been\u00a0used to articulate how shifting behaviours and social norms could reduce threats to mangrove and wild sea cucumber resources in the Bay of Assassins. Why are we focusing on these two resources? Because the local management\u00a0committees have\u00a0ranked them as their most important assets.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5784\" style=\"width: 653px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5784\" class=\"wp-image-5784 size-large lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/11-643x483.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"643\" height=\"483\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 643px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 643\/483;\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5784\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dolce, Cicelin, CBFs and Lalao working mangrove and sea cucumber concept model development in the village of Tampolove<\/p><\/div>\n<p>So in an effort to understand the local context in the Bay of Assassins, we aimed to develop concept models with the communities for both mangrove and wild sea cucumber resources. This was to\u00a0help us understand the <strong>perceived<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>state<\/strong> of those resources (declining, stable or increasing), <strong>direct<\/strong> <strong>threats<\/strong>\u00a0to\u00a0them, <strong>underlying causes<\/strong> of threats and the <strong>possible solutions<\/strong> that could be implemented to reduce these threats. Finally, <strong>barriers to achieving the solutions<\/strong> were also identified for each resource, in order to better understand what effective and sustainable strategies could be used to manage resources without resulting in significant loss for\u00a0the community.<\/p>\n<p>And so began our journey to the village of Tampolove, located at the heart of the Bay of Assassins, enduring the muddy, sandy, bumpy and somewhat flooded road for six hours from Toliara. Once in Tampolove, we had planned two days of preparation and training sessions with two Community-Based Facilitators (CBFs) who were both from this village and hired to help us with the field mission.<\/p>\n<p>Our initial training session with the CBFs consisted of explaining the objectives and methods of the ToC exercise, and producing mind maps with our different ideas, using small bits of different coloured paper. During the first session, the CBFs were acting as community members, giving us their ideas on what might be identified as threats and solutions during the rest of our sessions.<\/p>\n<p>Then we divided\u00a0up the tasks. One person would deal with writing the ideas onto the coloured paper (different colours were applied for each type of question: state, threats, causes, solutions and barriers), one person would arrange\u00a0these ideas on\u00a0the big poster paper\u00a0using masking tape, and one person\u00a0would be in charge of animating and encouraging the communities to give their ideas. After developing different practice concept models for both sea cucumbers and mangroves, the team swapped roles, allowing everyone to practice facilitating sessions.<\/p>\n<p>By the end of the two training days we were all ready to conduct these participatory ToC sessions with communities in the Bay of Assassins. The sessions started in the village of Tampolove, held in their large seaweed storage room (Tampolove is one of the leading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueventures.org\/conservation\/aquaculture.html\">aquaculture <\/a>villages in the Bay of Assassins), with an impressive number of men and women in attendance. The participants were divided into two groups according to their occupations (ie. sea cucumber fishers or mangrove wood collectors), to complete both sea cucumber and mangrove concept models. This village was very animated and got quickly involved in the sessions, creating two very interesting concept models by the end.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from our various adventures travelling both inland and at sea, where we used all means of transport including zebu carts, pirogues, 4x4s\u00a0and walking on foot (almost everything except a plane!) to reach the remaining eight\u00a0villages, we also experienced challenges during the sessions themselves when trying to engage communities, as sometimes people were not forthcoming with ideas or were nervous to voice their opinions.<\/p>\n<p>That is why the role of the blue forests team in animating people to express their ideas for sea cucumber and mangrove management was so important, as they were required to pose leading questions periodically, and sometimes even propose ideas to help generate further discussion around a\u00a0topic.\u00a0Conversely, in some cases, we noticed a huge involvement from communities and from of women especially in the villages of Vatoavo, Ankitambagna, Lamboara and Befandefa.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5785\" style=\"width: 634px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5785\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5785 lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/21.jpg\" alt=\"Dolce from Blue Forests team regrouping the ideas in the village of Befandefa\" width=\"624\" height=\"468\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/21.jpg 624w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/21-87x65.jpg 87w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/21-476x357.jpg 476w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/21-300x225.jpg 300w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 624px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 624\/468;\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5785\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grouping ideas in the village of Befandefa<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Overall, <strong>overexploitation<\/strong> was identified as the primary direct threat to both resources in the Bay of Assassins, caused by <strong>population growth<\/strong> (due partly to high migration levels), <strong>poverty,<\/strong> lack of<strong> livelihood alternatives<\/strong>, lack of <strong>management<\/strong> and habitat degradation caused by <strong>natural disasters<\/strong> (cyclones) and more specifically by a destructive sea cucumber fishing technique called <em>Vali-bato<\/em> (the upturning of rocks and coral reef to find sea cucumbers).<\/p>\n<p>Suggested solutions included increased <strong>access to family planning<\/strong>, education and awareness raising, promotion of <strong>alternative livelihoods<\/strong> (seaweed, vegetable, sea cucumber and chicken farming), mangrove and sea cucumber <strong>temporary and permanent reserves<\/strong> alongside <strong>mangrove planting<\/strong> and <strong><em>dina<\/em> development and enforcement<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Barriers to achieving those solutions included a high dependence on marine-based activities, worries about maintaining the famous Malagasy <strong><em>fihavanana<\/em><\/strong> (friendship) when enforcing their community law (<em>dina<\/em>), and\u00a0<strong>lack of money, materials, technical knowledge and access to markets<\/strong> to diversify livelihoods.<\/p>\n<p>I personally feel that the whole process in the field went well, thanks to the hard work and solidarity of the team. This process allowed\u00a0me to see\u00a0how ToC can be used to understand natural resource use, and work\u00a0towards sustainable management. This was the first of many steps in\u00a0the ToC process to identify the series of events which could lead to behaviour change to achieve sustainable management of resources in the Bay of Assassins, with much more hard work and critical thinking to follow now that we have a more detailed idea of the context that we&#8217;re working in.<\/p>\n<p>Our concept models highlighted a list of <strong>potential strategies<\/strong> that could be used to manage the Bay of Assassin\u2019s wild sea cucumber populations and mangrove stands. Our next step will be to enter all the data gathered and build one overarching concept model for each of those resources. Another trip to each village will be planned soon to develop these ideas further in a participatory manner, and assess the motivation\u00a0and capacity for achieving the solutions suggested to manage their resources.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5786\" style=\"width: 654px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5786\" class=\"size-large wp-image-5786 lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/IMG_0477-644x483.jpg\" alt=\"Everything but a plane! Zebu carts are the traditional way of getting around on land in Madagascar\" width=\"644\" height=\"483\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/IMG_0477-644x483.jpg 644w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/IMG_0477-2000x1500.jpg 2000w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/IMG_0477-87x65.jpg 87w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/IMG_0477-476x357.jpg 476w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/IMG_0477-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/IMG_0477-1300x975.jpg 1300w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/IMG_0477-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/IMG_0477-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/IMG_0477.jpg 1600w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 644px) 100vw, 644px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 644px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 644\/483;\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5786\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Everything but a plane! Zebu carts are the traditional way of getting around on land in Madagascar<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Overall, this exercise\u00a0has helped to get people thinking more critically about sustainable management of natural resources and how this can be feasibly achieved, by identifying attainable solutions and the hurdles over which we must climb in order to achieve them.<\/p>\n<p>All of this information gives us a good platform from which to continue working and building relations with the communities in the Bay of Assassins, allowing us to work as a team and provide technical support for the development and implementation of their proposed management plans where we can. Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM)!\u00a0As one\u00a0community member said: &#8220;<em>The sea is our life. So, with transparent participatory management of our resources, the future of our\u00a0descendants\u00a0will be assured<\/em>&#8220;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0Cicelin Rakotomahazo, blue forests socioeconomic scientist, Madagascar A few months ago, the blue forests\u00a0team set out to facilitate\u00a0a &#8220;Theory of Change&#8221; exercise\u00a0with communities from\u00a0nine villages in\u00a0the Bay of Assassins, in the Velondriake locally managed marine area\u00a0in southwest Madagascar. The\u00a0Bay of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":5789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[470,338,43],"tags":[500,487,495,501,483],"class_list":["post-5775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blue-forests-projects","category-lmma","category-velondriake-madagascar","tag-mangrove","tag-rights-based-management","tag-sea-cucumber","tag-seagrass","tag-sharing-learning"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A theory of change: communities think critically about pathways to sustainable management - Blue Ventures - Beyond Conservation blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A few months ago, the blue forests team set out to facilitate a &quot;Theory of Change&quot; exercise with communities from nine villages in the Bay of Assassins...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/en\/theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A theory of change: communities think critically about pathways to sustainable management - Blue Ventures - Beyond Conservation blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few months ago, I and the rest of the Blue Forests programme&#039;s south-west Madagascar team set out to the field to conduct a \u2018Theory of Change\u2019 (ToC) campaign with communities from nine villages in the Bay of Assassins.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/en\/theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blue Ventures - Beyond Conservation blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-04-24T12:00:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-04-28T15:23:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/media\/2014\/04\/Velondriake-Committee-meetings_cropped.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"547\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cicelin Rakotomahazo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@blueventures\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@blueventures\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Cicelin Rakotomahazo\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.blueventures.org\\\/en\\\/theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.blueventures.org\\\/en\\\/theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Cicelin Rakotomahazo\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.blueventures.org\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/c95f19994c4aac1509b72c1355190fdd\"},\"headline\":\"A theory of change: communities think critically about pathways to sustainable management\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-04-24T12:00:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-04-28T15:23:22+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.blueventures.org\\\/en\\\/theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1354,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.blueventures.org\\\/en\\\/theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.blueventures.org\\\/media\\\/2014\\\/04\\\/Velondriake-Committee-meetings_cropped.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"mangrove\",\"rights-based management\",\"sea cucumber\",\"seagrass\",\"sharing learning\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Blue Forests\",\"LMMA\",\"Velondriake\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.blueventures.org\\\/en\\\/theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.blueventures.org\\\/en\\\/theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.blueventures.org\\\/en\\\/theory-change-communities-think-critically-pathways-sustainable-management\\\/\",\"name\":\"A theory of change: communities think critically about pathways to sustainable management - 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