Participatory sustainable management of the Cocobolo nature reserve bufferzone and creation of an ecological corridor

This project is located in the the Mamoni valley in Panama which is in the Choco-Darien biodiversity hotspot and part of the Meso-American Biological Corridor. The NGO Conservation through Research, Education and Action (CREA) manages the private Cocobolo Nature Reserve (430 hectares) which bordered in the north by the Nargana Wilderness Area and is in the eastern buffer zone Chagres National Park. CREA has worked on conservation and human development issues in the Mamoni Valley for the past 3 years and has received an SPN grant to purchase a strategic 50ha plot. They have undertaken community research and built up a working stakeholder map with the communities. According to CREA there is a very high tree diversity in the reserve and several red listed animal species Atelopus limosus (EN), Crax rubra (EN), Tapirus bairdii (EN), Panthera Onca (NT), Leopardus Wiedii (LC), Leopardus pardalis (LC). The main threat to the reserve and the region is subsistence farming methods leading to uncontrolled agricultural expansion into natural forests. It is commonly known that the first years the crop production from this method is high but due to quick erosion on the bare soils many nutrients quickly wash away. After two seasons these areas are transformed to pastureland for extensive cattle ranging. Currently very few reliable economic alternatives are given to the ecological unsustainable cattle ranging. The slow reduction of fertility and production also lead to illegal logging and hunting in the CNR and the other bordering protected areas. The goal of this project is to make a first step into the transition of the Mamoni into a sustainable landscape that balance the needs of human livelihoods and nature conservation. In order to do this CREA has developed a project that will build capacity on high productive sustainable agriculture among the 3 communities of the Mamoni valley Mamoni Arriba, Las Zahinas (closest 1.5 km) and El Valle and implement 5 ecological friendly pilot agricultural plots and conservation plans on farmers’ lands in the CNR buffer zone. The project has three objectives: Firstly to build sustainable farming capacity among farmers in the 3 target communities. CREA hopes to achieve objective result by increasing the knowledge of the communities on the importance of habitat quality, environmental services and sustainable agriculture. This will be done by conducting 3 environmental training sessions, 10 agricultural training sessions and 2 train the trainer’s sessions. Training will be open to the female and male members. The training days will begin with a theoretical session followed by a practical using the teaching hut, demonstration farm and nursery facilities available at CNR. The second objective is to transition pasture land to wildlife friendly and livelihood creating pilot plots (?1 ha) on 5 farms in the CNR buffer zone. This objective pertains to farms next to CNR including areas adjacent to the newly acquired parcel of land bought through an IUCN Netherlands Committee SPN grant. This will be done by undertaking participatory planning in the 5 selected farms to choose the crop types, assisting the implementation of the plots on the five farms and by providing guidance on commercial outlets and market processes for cash crops produced like chili pepper and cilantro. The third objective is to mitigate conservation threats of five buffer zone farms as they relate to CNR and its buffer zone. Threats include cattle intrusion into CNR and buffer zone forests, uncontrolled use of fire, logging and hunting. That will be done through mapping the CNR buffer zone with analysis of threats, mitigation strategies and a monitoring system. An extra focus will be on the five farms which will be given technical and material support to implement a conservation plan which could mean actions such as the provision of water troughs for cattle, reducing the need for cattle to walk to streams to drink and/or the fencing of forests. Additionally two CNR employees will be trained in a formal course on control and monitoring of the protected area.