Across the Western Indian Ocean, marine conservation areas operate in very different ecological, social and institutional settings. Some have management plans but struggle to translate them into day-to-day decisions. Others need stronger governance arrangements, better compliance systems or more meaningful community participation. At highly established sites, the challenge may instead be adapting strong existing systems to emerging pressures.
This diversity sits at the heart of Hifadhi Blu.
Supported by the Minderoo Foundation and implemented by WIOMSA in collaboration with Advanced Conservation Strategies (ACS) and the Western Indian Ocean Marine Protected Areas Network (WIOMPAN), Hifadhi Blu supports Ocean Conservation Areas (OCAs) to identify and address the factors that are limiting their management effectiveness. Rather than prescribing a common intervention, the programme uses a Collaborative Systems Approach to understand how each conservation system functions, identify high-leverage opportunities for change, and link investments explicitly to improvements in management effectiveness.
In July 2026, Hifadhi Blu’s second cohort began implementation. The portfolio brings together marine protected areas, community and co-managed areas, government agencies and conservation organisations across the Western Indian Ocean. Their projects are very different. What connects them is a common question: what needs to change for this particular conservation area to work better?
Different places, different management challenges
The Cohort 2 portfolio illustrates why improving management effectiveness cannot be reduced to a single intervention such as more patrols, more equipment or more monitoring.
In Malindi–Watamu Marine Protected Area in Kenya, A Rocha Kenya is testing the Specific Watamu Action Teams (SWAT) governance framework as a way of strengthening coordination and translating existing stakeholder capacity into more effective management action. The project focuses on operationalising a governance mechanism intended to act as a cost-effective “force multiplier” for management.
Further south along the Kenyan coast, the Kenya Fisheries Service is working across the Shimoni–Vanga and Malindi–Magarini Joint Co-Management Areas. Together, these areas cover approximately 2,119 km² and support more than 5,900 artisanal fishers. Here, the challenges include fragmented governance, inconsistent by-laws, weak enforcement and limited ecological monitoring. The project will strengthen governance and compliance while building the evidence and institutional conditions needed for the two JCMAs to progress towards recognition as Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs).
At the Baraawe Marine Conservation Area in Somalia, the starting point is different again. The immediate priority is not sophisticated monitoring technology or extensive ecological studies. It is establishing a legitimate and functional governance system. Led by the Climate Resilience and Adaptation Network (CRAN), Phase I will clarify stakeholder expectations and institutional mandates, establish an interim co-management committee with agreed representation and decision-making procedures, and develop a pathway towards broader legal and institutional recognition. Only once these foundations are sufficiently established will larger technical investments become useful and actionable.
This sequencing is important. Hifadhi Blu is deliberately asking projects to distinguish between the visible symptoms of weak management and the systems that produce them.
Understanding the problem before investing in the solution
That principle is especially clear at Vamizi Island in Mozambique.
Fundação Quirimbas’ project ultimately aims to reduce illegal and destructive fishing and strengthen community stewardship. But rather than beginning by assuming that more enforcement is the solution, Phase I asks why illegal fishing persists.
The project will examine fisheries governance, the functioning of the Community Fisheries Council, fishing practices and pressures, enforcement arrangements, gender and livelihoods, ecological conditions and the incentives that influence fisher behaviour. It will also examine lessons from successful co-management systems elsewhere in Mozambique and the WIO. These findings will then be used to develop the interventions to be tested during the next phase.
A similar logic underpins the work of Madagascar National Parks at Nosy Hara Marine National Park. The project begins with a management effectiveness assessment but explicitly goes beyond the assessment score itself. Identified weaknesses will be examined through ecological, institutional, operational, social and financial dimensions to understand their underlying causes. The intention is to distinguish symptoms from root causes and prioritise interventions based on evidence rather than assumptions.
This matters because the same apparent management weakness can have very different explanations. Low community participation, for example, might reflect weak consultation structures, limited trust, unequal access to decision-making, unclear benefits or deeper questions of legitimacy. Each diagnosis points towards a different response.
Making existing management systems work
In Tanzania, WATONET’s work in the DOKICHUNDA Collaborative Fisheries Management Area demonstrates another recurring challenge: sometimes the plan already exists.
The central issue is translating that plan into routine governance and management decisions.
Phase I therefore focuses on establishing and testing the systems needed for implementation. This includes improving access to fisheries data and developing a practical “data-to-decision” tool for Beach Management Units; strengthening local government oversight; testing governance coaching; and creating stronger pathways for women and young people to participate in decision-making. The longer-term ambition is for BMU workplans, monitoring and patrol priorities to be routinely guided by the CFMA management plan rather than management remaining reactive.
At Dwesa–Cwebe Marine Protected Area in South Africa, the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency is tackling the relationship between conservation planning and community participation. The project will develop an operational MPA management plan through an inclusive process involving communities, traditional leaders, fishers, women, youth, researchers and government stakeholders. This will be accompanied by community-based mussel rehabilitation, citizen-science linefish and rocky-shore monitoring, and local capacity development. The intended shift is from predominantly top-down management towards a system in which local communities participate as active partners in conservation and management.
Management effectiveness also means protecting what already works
Perhaps the clearest illustration of the diversity within Cohort 2 comes from Aldabra Atoll in Seychelles.
Aldabra is not starting from a position of weak management. The project documentation describes an exceptionally intact ecosystem with a long history of conservation management and monitoring. The challenge is ensuring that those systems remain effective as conditions change.
Increasing tourism, movement of people and supplies, invasive-species risks and staff turnover are placing new pressure on existing operational systems. The Seychelles Islands Foundation will therefore strengthen tourism governance, review and improve biosecurity measures, invest in equipment for safer handling of supplies and incursion response, and develop digital training modules to help staff consistently implement the Aldabra Management Plan.
This is an important part of the Hifadhi Blu story. Improving management effectiveness does not always mean repairing a failing system. Sometimes it means strengthening a successful one before emerging pressures erode what it has achieved.
A programme designed to learn
The diversity of Cohort 2 is deliberate.
Hifadhi Blu was designed around the understanding that marine conservation systems are complex. The programme therefore combines grant funding with systems analysis, monitoring, capacity development and peer learning. Capacity support is intended to respond directly to the barriers identified at each site, including governance, enforcement, ecological monitoring, stakeholder engagement and adaptive management.
Importantly, funding is also performance-based. For several Cohort 2 projects, the first months are intentionally focused on diagnosis, governance, baseline development and testing assumptions. Larger interventions can then be refined according to what the first phase reveals rather than locking projects into solutions designed before the system is properly understood.
Across Baraawe, Vamizi, Nosy Hara, DOKICHUNDA and the Kenyan JCMAs, this means building the foundations before scaling investment. At Dwesa–Cwebe and Aldabra, where longer-term programmes are already more clearly defined, monitoring and learning will still determine how implementation is adapted over time.
The objective is therefore not simply to complete a collection of activities.
It is to leave behind stronger conservation systems: institutions that can make better decisions, governance arrangements that are more legitimate, managers who can use evidence, communities with meaningful roles, monitoring systems connected to action, and interventions that can continue to evolve after individual grants have ended.
As Cohort 2 moves from planning into implementation, these sites will provide an opportunity to test a simple but important proposition: lasting improvements in marine conservation come not from applying the same solution everywhere, but from understanding what is preventing each system from working — and investing in the changes that matter most.
Hifadhi Blu is supported by the Minderoo Foundation and implemented by WIOMSA in collaboration with Advanced Conservation Strategies (ACS) and WIOMPAN.
