Representatives of Nature Seychelles and the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF) were recently on a fact-finding mission to the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros to assess local capacity for biodiversity conservation.

The objective was to meet Comorian stakeholders involved in terrestrial biodiversity conservation, in particular those from the NGO sector, undertake a ‘rapid environmental assessment’ to formulate priorities for conservation, identify actions that could be undertaken by the NGOs with regard to regional cooperation between NGOs, and investigate the possibility of establishing NGO partnerships within the region and with international NGOs.

Nature Seychelles was represented by Colleen Morel and the MWF by John Mauremootoo and the mission was funded by the COI Projet Regional Environnement.

Nature Seychelles and the MWF were identified as establised regional NGOs capable of kickstarting the process. The trip involved visits to the three islands of Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli.

According to Ms Morel, the rapid assessment revealed that there is an urgent need for action to conserve the remaining biodiversity which is under a lot of pressure from a rapidly growing population with a poorly diversified economy.

"The local community is aware of the environmental impacts of their unsustainable livelihood but lack alternatives to mitigate these," she says.

She adds that the Ulangas or environmental groups have been successful in raising awareness at grass roots level, and the establishment of the Marine Park around the island of Moheli, under the GEF-UNDP Biodiversity Project, has met with a high level of acceptance by the local community.

However, technical and scientific support are lacking and Nature Seychelles and the MWF hope to assist the NGOs by organising staff exchanges, conduct assessment of key sites to target conservation actions, establish a regional resource database and a web-based discussion group to facilitate exchange of information between practitioners in the region, Ms Morel explains. 

She believes that these initiatives will hopefully help to increase capacity for terrestrial conservation and produce tangible results.

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