“In many ways, mangroves are the poster child of the interdependence between people and nature.”

This powerline from Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary for Convention on Biological Diversity, captures how the recent State of the World's Mangroves Report reveals the continued need for a deeply collaborative approach to conservation and restoration so it’s key to recognise that Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) is integral to this.

Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) is defined as “the knowledge, practices, and beliefs gained through extensive personal observation of, and interaction with, local ecosystems, and shared among local resource users”.

Like the mangrove roots, local knowledge goes much deeper than looking at simply the benefits and threats to these ecosystems. Insights into climatic and seasonal changes, historic biodiversity, habitat connectivity, cultural significance and more, are proven to be vital to the success of restoration and conservation efforts.

Mangroves are intricate and fascinating environments that are fundamental to the health of people and nature across the world.

Coastal communities have lived adjacent to or on mangrove ecosystems for millennia, benefitting from ecosystem services such as coastal protection from extreme weather, food security from fish nurseries and job security through fishing or tourism.

Coastal communities have built up a wealth of cultural and ecological knowledge on these ecosystems that support both their community in the immediate locality, and the wider planet. In short, LEK can support both people, nature and climate.

Conservation and restoration efforts also have an ethical duty to support the best interests of local communities, placing leaders at the heart of governance.

The benefits of LEK are twofold: It can provide insights into local communities and identify underrepresented groups who would make valuable partners. And the valorization of local knowledge is also essential to strengthen community engagement with efforts to conserve and reforest mangroves.

Nilson Cardoso (65), is a fisher who is quoted by the Rare in the State of the World's Mangroves Report. He lives along Brazil’s Amazon coast and points out the importance of local knowledge, demonstrating how this validates his own role in the community whilst educating others: “When I have the opportunity to show my knowledge, I feel flattered, proud. I am proud that my classroom has been the mangrove, the streams. Everything I know was observed from nature, and that has value.”

The formation of National Blue Carbon Action Partnerships in collaboration with a specific country’s government, and led by in-country stakeholders, is a new blue-print to upscale local initiatives to drive more local engagement and leverage local knowledge.

LEK can fill gaps in primary data collection, for example, building species lists, resource mapping, or documenting human uses.

The State of the World's Mangroves report details the importance of habitat connectivity, looking at how mangrove conservation can also integrate with and support adjacent ecosystems such as coral reefs and seagrass meadows. Despite the importance of habitat connectivity, many efforts at mangrove restoration have been misguidedly placed in some of these adjacent ecosystems such as tidal flats. LEK can provide spatial information on the best locations for mangrove reforestation and the diversity of mangrove species that is vital to the success of restoration efforts to boost biodiversity.

The Blue Carbon Action Partnership is working with local partners such as Konservasi Indonesia and ZSL Philippines to support access to accurate and timely data and drive a powerful case for political support of biodiversity.

Blue carbon ecosystems are always changing. Projects need to embrace this, which means continuous adaptation and it’s only through LEK that wider stakeholders involved can understand how and where to adapt project practices.

The State of Mangroves report shows just how crucial LEK is to project adaptation. One example in Kenya highlights that 2,000 mangrove seedlings planted in Mwakirunge achieved a staggering >97% success rate thanks to LEK, which helped to inform the restoration practices, especially for site matching, selecting species, and timing the planting.

How will LEK receive the full recognition for the part it plays to fulfil the potential of community led conservation?

The long-term impacts of these efforts remains to be fully recognized. This is a question and challenge that the Blue Carbon Action Partnership is looking to tackle through the formation of local NBCAPs.

NBCAP Indonesia and Philippines launched a series of stakeholder mapping exercises to carefully identify key voices within the local blue carbon communities—those with invaluable Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) who could champion scaling blue carbon initiatives. By fostering dialogue and collaboration, NBCAP aims that the resulting policy and finance roadmap fully incorporates local priorities.