The Environmental Research Institute Charlotteville (ERIC) implemented a project called: Marine protected area co-management capacity building in NE Tobago 2014-2015.

The project directly alligned with our mission is to value and integrate diverse knowledge and experiences to manifest a mutually beneficial community of people and the environment for the responsible stewardship of North-East Tobago, from ridge to village to ocean.

Pre-project, ERIC and stakeholders in NE Tobago had identified the need to increase the capacity of community based organisations in NE Tobago to monitor and eventually co-manage the marine resources in the area. This is critical since a large Marine Protected Area (MPA) is planned in NE Tobago, partly funded by the Global Environment Facility.

The goal of the project was that Community Based Organisations (CBOs) in NE Tobago are meaningfully contributing to the co-management of their marine resources and the envisaged Marine Protected Area.was
The project objectives were as follows:
to conduct 96 community talks informing and update community members or
groups about the state of their marine resources and the future MPA;
to make equipment & material, facilities, expertise and training available for conducting biodiversity data collection;
to monitor the marine biological status within the future MPA over a period of five months and establish baseline and a preliminary data base.

The members of ERIC and especially the implementation team had the academic background and a sound track record regarding building capacity for CBOs, conducting training related to marine biological monitoring, working with CBOs in NE Tobago and were very familiar with the plans for the MPA.

ERIC successfully fulfilled all obligations made towards facilitating the capacity-building of participants as well as completing all promised monitoring programmes with in the proposed timeframe. In-fact, ERIC increased its in-kind contribution to better facilitate the needs of the participants in the form of additional training days and sponsored medical assessments. Additionally more participants than anticipated were facilitated in theoretical and First Aid Training. Within budget, ERIC increased the number of trained Reef Check Experts from one person to nine persons. Also a total of 67 dives instead of 60 anticipated dives were conducted.
ERIC created project and funder visibility through media articles, fb posts and a youtube channel highlighting the project. Staff and trainees of ERIC exhibited at the GEF, SGP, UNDP Knowledge Fair in May 2015.

The duration of the project was twelve months, the total cost was US$ 92,836, of which US$ 42,836 are provided in-kind and US$ 50,000 were granted by the Small Grants Programme.