As part of CCEF’s goal to help strengthen the capacity of coastal stakeholders, a feedback and planning workshop was held at the Alicia Apartelle on June 24-35, 2019. This event was held as part of the initiative of the Coral Rehabilitation Project: Assessment and Capacity Building Through Protocol Training in Southeast Cebu and Siquijor Province, with the joint support from the Unico Conservation Foundation (UCF).
On the 1st day of the workshop, Southeast Cebu municipalities share their MPA concerns through a Leveling-off workshop. Project ADABOSS manager Michelle Baird and Principal Investigator, Dr. Aileen Maypa discusses the feedback and results of the broadscale and fine-scale surveys at the southeast municipalities of Cebu (Argao, Dalaguete, Alcoy, Boljoon, Oslob, Santander and Samboan). CCEF Research Assistant, AJ Lozada also discusses about coral reef rugosity and its significance in the ADABOSS MPAs. From the results of the broad-scale and fine-scale surveys, only the municipality of Samboan showed to have an excellent coral cover of 60%, while the others showed to have been strongly affected by the Typhoon Pablo.
The afternoon session then opens the discussion for the ADABOSS municipalities to discuss their concerns and questions, as well as a planning workshop on addressing the threats and issues in their own municipalities.
On the second day of the feedback planning workshop, CCEF Area Coordinator, Reaan Catitig discusses the accuracy of the coordinates taken by the Southeast Cebu Bantay Dagat, and participants from each municipality presented their plans and activities for their MPAs.
Representatives from each of the ADABOSS municipalities (Argao, Dalaguete, Oslob, Samboan and Santander) proceed to present their and plans on addressing the issues in their own municipalities. Overall, most of the MPA sites of the Southeast Cebu municipalities need to strengthen their enforcement, and only one MPA site was identified to be a candidate for active coral rehabilitation.
