Data from: Using a participatory impact assessment framework to evaluate a community-led mangrove and fisheries conservation approach in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

Community-based conservation (CBC) has been identified as a solution to
biodiversity loss, climate change, and the reduction of rural poverty. The
heterogeneity in social and economic inequalities often acts as a barrier
to community engagement in resource management and further inhibits the
distributional equity of social and ecological outcomes. This study
presents a participatory impact assessment (PIA) framework that evaluated
the outcomes of a cross-sector community-led conservation initiative.
Community members involved in the program identified activities and
outcomes for the Conservation Cooperative (CC), ranking the influence of
the former on the latter as well as their daily life through multiple
focus group discussions (FGDs). Participants were asked to rank the impact
of activities on outcomes and the scale of the outcome which was totaled
to identify the most impactful program activities and outcomes during the
project period. Community members reported improved income, health,
education and the creation of a locally-led natural resource management
system. Members also reported improved crab harvest rates and reduced
mangrove deforestation. Environmental outcomes identified by community
members through the PIA were verified through a secondary spatial analysis
and mud-crab independent fisheries monitoring. The results support the
hypothesis that environmental NGOs need to consider a multi-dimensional
view of human well-being, and that cross-sector integrated interventions
may be effective at improving multiple outcomes. Future steps should focus
on spatial replication of the CC program which will provide further
insights by testing for differences in outcomes between villages, how
those are impacted by preexisting social and ecological systems, and
comparing outcomes between control sites that did not receive
interventions.