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Island in Hinatuan Bay, Philippines. Photo by Daisy Flores-Salgado.
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In the mid 1990s, various community-based projects were underway throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Meanwhile, the Biodiversity Conservation Network (BCN), a program of the Biodiversity Support Program (BSP) initiated in the early 1990s, was carrying out an assessment of economic incentives for natural resource conservation at 39 sites worldwide. Three of these BCN-supported sites focused on community involvement in monitoring and evaluating marine resources: one in Ucunivanua Village in Verata district in Fiji, one at Dauwi Island in the Padaido Islands, West Papua, Indonesia, and one in Arnavon Islands in the Solomon Islands. The Verata and Padaido projects would later become pilot sites in the LMMA Network, which embraced BCN’s idea of collective learning.
In the late 1990s, staff from the World Resources Institute (WRI), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recognized that although there were many initiatives involving community-based marine conservation taking place throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and that many of them overlapped, they were not necessarily sharing resources nor information and thus not learning as much as they could from each others’ successes and shortcomings. Ultimately, these projects were not reaching their fullest potential and conservation impact. These staff members began devising a proposal for bringing such isolated projects together in order to learn collectively and improve their outcomes. The following is a timeline illustrating the inception of the LMMA Network.
| Mid-1990s |
Various community-based (or locally-managed) marine projects underway throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific. |
| June 1999 |
Representatives from the three BCN-supported projects, along with other practitioners from the region, attended a workshop held in Fiji, the goal of which was to provide guidance on the principles of community-based management. Participants identified the need for improved teamwork and networking and recommended the formation of a Network to improve marine conservation work in the region. |
| May 2000 |
Staff from the World Resources Institute releases the "Fish for the Future?" research concept paper. |
| Aug. 2000 |
World Resources Institute, MacArthur Foundation and Packard Foundation jointly host the three-day workshops, "Fish for the Future? Testing Shared Assumptions Regarding Community Participation in Nearshore Marine Protection," in Suva, Fiji and in Iloilo, Philippines to introduce the idea of creating a learning network in the region. During these workshops, participants began drafting what would eventually become the LMMA Network’s Learning Framework and Social Contract. |
| Oct. 2000 |
Reconvening of participants in Bali, Indonesia during the International Coral Reef Symposium to officially form and launch the LMMA Network and nominate initial Network Coordination Team (NCT) members. |
| 2001 |
Development and training of the NCT; development of an LMMA country network model and the LMMA Network’s Learning Framework; outreach in Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea to introduce the LMMA Network; gathering of project representatives at the Pacific Science Congress in Guam to share LMMA experiences and lessons. |
| 2002 |
Completion of the first draft of the Learning Framework, training in its use and testing in Fiji and Indonesia; new NCT members brought on board; completion of the LMMA Network website; recognition of the LMMA approach by resolution of the South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme during the 7th Pacific Island Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areas in the Cook Islands; Fiji LMMA country network is acknowledged for its work by receiving a United Nations Equator Initiative Award. |
| 2003 |
Network-wide meeting of project representatives in Fiji to review project progress, revise the Learning Framework, hold training in biological and socio-economic monitoring, and share experiences and lessons. Here, the Social Contract and Intellectual Property Rights statement were finalized and ratified; new sites, country networks, and NCT members were initiated; and the first full members were nominated and accepted. |
Photo by Cliff Marlessy |
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Members at the Network-wide meeting in Fiji, 2003 |
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Photo by Toni Parras | |
What is the LMMA Network?
