La Minga: Biodiversity use and conservation in Colombia's pacific coast

During the fifth and final year of La Minga, nine projects from the second call for local operators in 2021/2022 were executed. During the whole project period 17 projects were implemented by 12 organizations. In all three project areas, the communities have acquired skills and capacity for the appropriate monitoring, control, and vigilance of local biodiversity (including for example marine turtles, birds, and mangrove and piangua) and received training to become environmental safeguards and forest rangers. These capacities will not only enable strengthened environmental conservation, but also allow beneficiaries to be better prepared for future environmental jobs. La Minga has also led to the establishment of local agreements, for example an agreement for the substitution of unregulated fishing gears, thus contributing to conservation of marine biodiversity, and one including 900 hectares of protection for mangroove and piangua. La Minga has strengthened the school of leaders -for a high-level ecotourism business-, and the local production chains of Piangua and other marine resources. These activities have been key factors for market development which, consequently, have become a relevant income generation activity, thereby contributing to poverty reduction. The students of the programme were also tasked to replicate what they have learnt in the leadership school in their respective communities, to disseminate knowledge further. The capacity building component of La Minga has been essential. For example, strengthening capacities within project management and administration not only positively impacted the project implementation, but also enabled that local organizations today can participate in other calls and attract new resources. During the last project year, La Minga published "Expedition La Minga", a book written in an accessible language, particularly considering accessibility for children and youth, that contains the principal results and achievements from the project. Since the beginning of La Minga, Fondo Acción has acknowledged the importance of promoting the equal participation in the formulation and implementation of local projects supported by the contribution. Currently, women participate in projects as environmental educators, accountants, project coordinators, monitoring, environmental safeguard rangers, among others. This approach has a plan to be further strengthened by the allocation of resources from the Blue Action Fund.

The Minga is a mechanism designed to support the conservation and management of marine ecosystems located in the conservation mosaics of three Regional Protected Areas (RPAs) in the Pacific Coast of Colombia. This support will be addressed specifically for the purposes of conservation, management, and sustainable use of natural resources, in the framework of the three Management Plans for each protected area. The above is to be achieved by the strengthening of stakeholders involved in the formulation and development of such Management Plans, which include National authorities, regional authorities and ethnic communities that live in these areas (Afro Colombian communities and indigenous peoples). Afro Colombian Community Councils control the use and conservation of natural resources within their territories, among other governance functions. The three La Minga marine protected areas have basic co-management schemes between ethnic communities and regional environmental authorities, but there is a substantial need to strengthen some aspects of these interactions in order to achieve progress and performance. Therefore, the main purpose of the Minga is to bring together the main social and institutional stakeholders, conservation strategies and management mechanisms for the sustainable use of natural resources that ensure proper conservation of these RPAs to guarantee that conservation efforts represent biophysical, economic, socio-cultural and political diversity in the Pacific Region