This guide has been developed for the protected area managers, staff and relevant community associations in Niumi National Park, the Gambia, and Sangomar Marine Protected Area, Senegal, and aims to strengthen their capacity in monitoring change in their marine protected areas. It brings together a range of simple methodologies to carry out regular climatic, socio-economic and environmental monitoring and proposes some resource-efficient and practical techniques that can be used to collect data.

This guide was developed in the context of the project Climate Resilient Communities and Protected Areas, funded by the MAVA Foundation and executed by the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) in cooperation with ENDA – Energie Environnement Développement, the Regional Network of West African Marine Protected Areas (RAMPAO) and the West African Regional Marine and Coastal Conservation Programme (PRCM). The project aims to enhance livelihoods and increase social-ecological resilience in West African coastal protected areas to the negative effects of climate change. It was implemented at three pilot sites across Niumi National Park and Sangomar. At each pilot site, a Community Planning Workshop was held, which assessed the vulnerability of the community to climate change, mapped resources and capacities, gathered information on local values and future aspirations, and developed Community Action Plans. These Action Plans aim to build resilience to climate change through adaptation, among other options. The Community Action Plans resulting from the Community Planning Workshops guided the implementation of several community-based and ecosystem-based adaptation interventions.

This guide focuses on how to monitor these interventions. It is not a comprehensive protected area-wide monitoring protocol, but focuses on the monitoring of the adaptation interventions implemented as a result of the project, all of which align with the management priorities of the two marine protected areas. The interventions contribute to addressing challenges mentioned in the protected area management plans and complement current monitoring objectives. This guide proposes a number of indicators linked to the interventions that are suitable for the protected areas to monitor, but the list is by no means exhaustive and protected area managers and their staff can choose to add to, modify or select between the proposed indicators. Using the monitoring methods in this guide is a good starting point and will help inform wider adaptive management strategies of both marine protected areas in the longer-term. The methods described in this guide might also be useful to managers of other protected areas where similar interventions with similar objectives are being implemented.