Local perceptions of mangrove protection and livelihood improvement in Co-management: Lessons learnt and recommendations

Co-management has been widely used for sustainably managing forest resources, particularly in developing countries. Co-management becomes more effective when voices from related stakeholders are adequately heard. Until now, there has been limited knowledge with respect to local perceptions of their outcomes in protecting mangrove forests under co-management programs. We used the example of Kien Giang, Vietnam to address the above question because Kien Giang represents an appropriate case study in this regard. This study was undertaken using multi-year (2005 and 2022) shoreline change analysis together with semi-structured interviews with local communities and the assigned government agency with respect to mangrove protection and shoreline change. The results show that economic circumstances of local communities are an underlying cause of poor protection of allocated mangrove forests while insufficient knowledge of mariculture significantly contributed to the ineffective use of the forests for livelihood improvement. Meanwhile, limited staffing, capacity, and resources have been major constraints on effective protection of allocated mangrove forests and shoreline protection by the government agency. The findings help explain why the Kien Giang shoreline has been continuously changing without proper control measures. Therefore, documentation of local perceptions of the outcomes of their involvement should be emphasized as an integral part in co-management regime to improve the performance of co-management of natural resources.