The Rufford Foundation Final Report
|
|  Yüklə 1.24 Mb.
|
4. Briefly describe the involvement of local communities and how they have benefitted from the project (if relevant). Local communities are highly participatory and adjustable while conducting questionnaire surveys. They are also interested to know about the ongoing conservation measures at the Gulf of Mannar regions and recent initiatives and developments of the Government and other private sectors. 5. Are there any plans to continue this work? Yes. I would like to continue this work further by particularly focusing on identifying the key fishing zones and habitats of coral reef fishes and invertebrates. The marine ornamental fish collectors are well aware of the locations particularly in the collection of marine ornamental invertebrates such as sea anemones, shrimps, sponges, corals etc. Identified location will be further used for geo- referencing and demarcated as core zone, buffer zone, etc., for continuous monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem. 6. How do you plan to share the results of your work with others?
7. Timescale: Over what period was The Rufford Foundation grant used? How does this compare to the anticipated or actual length of the project? The grant was utilised for the whole project duration starting from July 2014. Field assistants were recruited from August 2014 and are advised to collect data on the exploitation of marine ornamental fishes and invertebrates. As a minimum of 1 year’s data is required for obtaining effective conclusions, we have extended our data collection up to July 2015 (12 months). Hence the duration of whole project is extended for one more month. 8. Budget: Please provide a breakdown of budgeted versus actual expenditure and the reasons for any differences. All figures should be in £ sterling, indicating the local exchange rate used.
*the extra amount has been spent by the Sathyabama university, Chennai 9. Looking ahead, what do you feel are the important next steps? After compiling all the data final report will be prepared and submitted to The Rufford Foundation, UK. A copy of the final report will also be sent to the concerned authority, Government of Tamil Nadu for detailed discussion regarding the establishment of management and conservation strategies in the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve. The list of collected species will be compared with the IUCN and CITES listings and it is helpful to identify vulnerable and endangered species involved in the trade. This in turn will lead to establish species specific action plans to reduce the pressure on wild collections. We also observed that certain fishermen were involved in the illegal collection of coral species and supplying to the purveyors for marine aquarium trade, which is currently illegal according to the Wildlife Protection Act of India 1972. It will also be intimated to the concerned authority such as Tamil Nadu forest department and Directorate of Fisheries, Tamil Nadu for taking necessary actions against the illegal collection of corals. In future, we also planned to track this illegal trade and identify the coral species (diversity and abundance) involved and the pathway of transport. If the project gets continued, we are also aiming to focus on identifying habitat specificity of each and every species involved in the marine aquarium trade. In addition, we will also work on the molecular phylogeny of coral reef fishes and invertebrates through DNA barcoding clearly understand the evolutionary ecology relationships. 10. Did you use The Rufford Foundation logo in any materials produced in relation to this project? Did the RSGF receive any publicity during the course of your work? The Rufford Foundation logo has been included in our internal activities during India’s ex-president visit on December 2014 to our centre. The collected specimens and other materials related to the ongoing project activities were displayed by providing proper credits to The Rufford Foundation, UK. In addition, one of my MS entitled “First record of lined wrasse Anampses lineatus (Perciformes: Labridae) from Gulf of Mannar, Tamil Nadu, India” has been communicated to the Journal of Threatened Taxa during May 2015 (Manuscript ID o4318) and proper credit to the funding organization has been mentioned in the acknowledgements. 11. Any other comments?
|