Effective management

Located in the Eastern part of Tanzania's mainland, the city of Dar es Salaam has been a fast urbanising centre in Sub Saharan Africa. A steady population increase represents implications related to increased human activities, such as encroachment of hazardous land, poor urban planning, as well as lack of infrastructure, placing considerable pressure on the good functioning of the city and causing a rapid loss of green areas and of trees. In counterbalancing these aspects, peri-urban agriculture, artisanal fishing, and nature-based tourism contribute substantially to the well being and livelihoods of the inhabitants of Dar es Salaam. Understanding that nature plays a significant role in the sustainable development of the city and to address the issues above, the municipality of Dar es Salaam, alongside several stakeholders, elaborated a so-called "Thematic Atlas of Nature’s Benefits to Dar es Salaam", tailored specifically for the city. One of the aims of the atlas is to tackle climate change effects that are threatening Dar es Salaam by keeping urban and peri-urban ecosystems intact while implementing nature-based solutions. It is a balancing act coupled with the fact that Dar es Salaam is located in a globally important biodiversity hotspot, the ‘East African Coastal Forest’. (1,2,3)

Monavale Vlei is an important wetland area within the city of Harare, characterised by miombo woodlands that play an important role in the fragile ecosystem of the Manyame catchment basin, the main supplier of water for the city of Harare and its suburbs. Throughout the years, Monavale has been subjected to a number of threats such as construction developments, dumping of waste, fires, illegal farming, invasive plants, informal agricultural practices and loss of biodiversity. To address some of these challenges the local community organized itself into a group - Conservation Society of Monavale (Cosmo) Trust, to protect the area and, with the help of the municipality of Harare and some international bodies, implemented a series of actions designed to protect the wetland and reduce the loss of biodiversity, among many others. In 2009 the NGO was awarded a United Nations Development Programme Global Environment Facility Small Grant. The intervention had 3 objectives: to restore parts of the wetlands, to advocate with the local and international authorities for the legislative protection of the wetlands, and to engage the scientific community in research regarding the wetlands. This enabled Cosmo to restore Monavale vlei to an almost pristine wetland state, and other UN funding has made possible several training and awareness projects for a wide range of audiences. (1,2,3)

Around 90% of Guyana’s population lives in an area that is below sea level, with many inhabiting flood-prone areas along the coast. The coastal plains are also home to about 75% of the country’s economic activities, including almost all of Guyana’s agricultural production. Over the years, degradation and loss of mangrove forests have resulted in increased coastal flooding and saltwater inundation of agricultural land. Mangroves contribute substantially to sea defence in Guyana by damping wave action and reducing wave energy, trapping sediments and stabilizing shoreline substrates while playing an important role in carbon sequestration.
The Guyana Mangrove Restoration Project was executed during 2010-2013 under the National Agricultural Research & Extension Institute. Following completion of the Project phase and given the importance of mangroves to Guyana’s coastal defences, mangrove restoration and management were integrated into NAREI (the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute), a national institution that promotes climate-smart agriculture and resilient citizens. (1,2)

The Mesurado mangrove forests, which is the focus point of the intervention, covers an area of approximately 6,760 hectares. It is situated within Montserrado County, around Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia, West Africa. It is surrounded by 38 human settlements some of which are regarded as slums. The area is currently one of those five Ramsar (Iranian city wherein 1971 was signed and ratified the Convention on Wetlands) designated sites in Liberia and a home of three species of mangrove that stands at the point of extinction due to human encroachment. (3) Adding to this, the area is used as a colossal waste dump, and, in cases, for cutting of mangrove trees for fish drying. In addition to the huge species richness of the area, it also serves as a habitat and breeding ground for marine species and provides a number of important ecosystem services. This intervention seeks to address the issue of ignorance on the part of the communities about the importance and benefits of mangroves in communities within and around the Mesurado wetland. As it is a soft measure project, the main implementation strategy includes a series of educational episodes through a system of religious conservation awareness and education and alternative livelihood options for the communities engaged. (1,2)

The Jerusalem Forest is located southwest of Jerusalem and is the green lung of the residents of Israel's capital. The forest has a variety of trees, flowers and wildlife, remains of ancient farming implements and burial caves (2). The forest was planted in the 1950s in an attempt to increase the green cover and natural biodiversity of the area. However, due to intensive urban development including road constructions and energy grid installation and forest fires the size of the forest has been shrinking once covering 4 700 000 m2 to the current size of 1 250 000m2. In 2016, a non-governmental green organisation initiated the renewing of the Jerusalem Forest with the aim to preserve the forest, halt its decrease, secure its sustainable maintenance while involving the public in the conservation efforts increasing their environmental knowledge about their local habitat and support nature stewardship through the application of a community forest model. (1,2,8)

As a result of a ReefFix Project, an Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Coral Reef and Mangrove Restoration and Watershed Management Demonstration programme, the Three Bays Marine Protected Area (MPA) and associated Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Plan have been established in Haiti (Refs. 4, 5 and 7). Only the second MPA to be established in the country, the Three Bays MPA includes the bays of Limonade, Caracol and Ft. Liberté (the administrative capital of the Nord-East department of Haiti), as well as the Lagon aux Boeufs. As summarised by Ref. 8, the establishment of the MPA and ICZM "will help protect the mangroves, eel grass beds, reefs and habitats housing important fisheries that are crucial for providing livelihoods to nearby communities. It will also help protect the area from storm surges and provide local communities with ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, tourism value and more". Additionally, the MPA will afford protection to numerous threatened species, "including sea turtles, whales, manatees and migratory birds" (Ref. 8).

The Ningbo Ecological Corridor is a post-industrial landscape ecological reconstruction project. It is located in the middle of the Eastern New Town in Ningbo, with a total area of 90 hectares [4]. Built upon a typical post-industrial site with degraded ecologies that needs to be healed and would soon become part of a new urbanized district, this project is holistic ecosystem services-oriented, introducing terraced wetland to manage elevation change of the site to slow the flows of urban runoffs from the street down to the river and remove the nutrients [1]. “Before being designed, the site and surrounding areas were fragmented farmland, villages and factories that were planned to be relocated - a typical brownfield in the rural-urban fringe of the southern region of China”[1]. With the implementation of the project, "the original channelized river is transformed into a meandering eco-friendly waterway dotted with tree isles to increase the interface between organisms and water bodies to empower the river’s purification capacity. The project uses productive crops and annual flowers that are rotated to bring seasonal surprise and agricultural vitality to the growing city. Boardwalks are designed to allow visitors to have intimate experience of nature and the nostalgic pastoral landscape. Pavilions made of corten steel floats on wetlands and terraces, giving the ecological corridor a touch of contemporary urban life and art. [1] "As a result, this project demonstrated landscape as an ecological infrastructure that heals the degraded ecological system meanwhile provides social and cultural services to the establishing communities." [1]

The wetlands to the east of Kolkata are well known over the world for their multiple uses. The locals are using the naturally occurring wetlands for wastewater fisheries and vegetable farming on garbage substrate & effluent irrigated paddy cultivation. In the process, the wetlands treat the wastewater and have saved the city of Calcutta from constructing and maintaining a wastewater treatment plant. Currently, encroachment has deteriorated the wetland ecosystem significantly. This intervention is about the management of the degraded wetland to recover it the best way possible. The goal of management planning is to „maintain East Kolkata Wetlands in a healthy condition to enable the delivery of its full range of ecosystem services and sustain biological diversity values’. [1, 2, 3]

The Water Forest region covering around 250,000 hectares in the hinterland of Mexico City provides 70% of the city's urban water demand through the aquifers located below the forest. It consists of forest fragments and grasslands, encompasses four mountain ranges, and two adjacent Mexican states – Morelos and Mexico State with national parks (2). However, as native grasses are replaced by human settlements and poorly sited tree-planting projects, water available to recharge the aquifers declines and their loss contributes to flooding in densely populated urban areas downstream (1, 2). The Water Forest Initiative initiated by a non-governmental NGO aims to develop and implement "a regional conservation strategy to provide water and other ecosystem services to Mexico City (CDMX), Mexico State, and Morelos through the protection and rehabilitation of the Water Forest Area" (1 p6).

The Nature Conservancy established the Cape Town Water Fund in 2016 using the worldwide applied water fund to enable downstream water users to invest in land conservation and restoration upstream. (4,5) In 2018, the Water Fund started its pilot project on the catchment area of the Atlantis Aquifer, outside of Cape Town's boundaries on state land. The pilot project "seeks to increase water supply to Cape Town by removing invasive plant species in water catchment areas. Invasive species have been found to use significantly more water than indigenous species and uptake millions of litres of water from the catchment area annually that would otherwise be added to the city’s water supply" ( 1 p7). The intervention also supports the empowerment of marginalized communities by providing training and employment for them. As one of the main characteristics of the water fund model, various local stakeholders from all sectors are invited to develop and implement water connected challenges (1).