Archive for: Coastal


This booklet summarizes the journey of Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) in the Philippines. Synthesizing decades of leadership and learnings from PHE programs led by local and regional experts, it highlights key projects and milestones and summarizes lessons learned and key themes that have emerged during the last two decades. This resource is intended to serve as a practical guide for others interested in PHE implementation, including program managers, technical advisors, or policymakers in the Philippines and around the world.

Year: 2021

Source: Knowledge SUCCESS and PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc.

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This case study examines the link between marine resource management and the contraceptive use among married couples in the lobster-fishing village of Punta Allen, located in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Several reasons appear to contribute to small desired and actual family sizes, including a medical clinic staff effective in promoting family planning, cooperative and private resource ownership, changing cultural attitudes, geographical limitations to population and economic growth, and a desire to conserve the environment for aesthetic and economic motives.

Year: 2008

Source: Population and Environment

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    This study provides a snapshot of the population, health, and environment situation and practices in the villages surrounding the Saadani National Park (SANAPA) and demonstrates the utility of a transdisciplinary systems perspective to evaluate population–health–environment linkages (PHE). Analyzing survey data from eight villages, this paper shows that in the SANAPA area, livelihoods are highly dependent on natural resources, but both agriculture and fisheries are experiencing a decline in productivity and profitability. Population stressors include a high population momentum, early marriages, teenage pregnancies, and migration. Women bear a heavy workload, while having little or no say in decision-making. The public health situation is severe with health facilities few and far in-between; lack of access to clean water and safe sanitation; and many households suffering from diarrhea, malaria, pneumonia, skin diseases, and HIV/AIDS. Environmental protection arrangements are in place in all sites, however, the awareness of protected areas and their benefits is low and many feel helpless in protecting the environment. Climate change—increasing periods of drought and irregular rainfall—contribute to food insecurity and health problems. The interconnectedness between these stressors reinforces the need for an integrated approach to addressing coastal conservation and community development in the SANAPA area.

    Year: 2012

    Source: Ocean & Coastal Management

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      The interactions between human population dynamics and the environment have often been viewed mechanistically. This review elucidates the complexities and contextual specificities of population environment relationships in a number of domains. It explores the ways in which demographers and other social scientists have sought to understand the relationships among a full range of population dynamics (e.g., population size, growth, density, age and sex composition, migration, urbanization, vital rates) and environmental changes. It then briefly reviews a number of the theories for understanding population and the environment and provides a state-of-the-art review of studies that have examined population dynamics and their relationship to five environmental issue areas. The review concludes by relating population-environment research to emerging work on human-environment systems.

      Year: 2007

      Source: Annual Review of Environment and Resources

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        This peer-reviewed journal article on the value added of PHE approaches describes a quasi-experimental design used by the IPOPCORM project in the Philippines to test the hypothesis that there will be a significant improvement in both coastal resource management (CRM) and human reproductive health (RH) outcomes by delivering these services in an integrated manner as opposed to delivering either in isolation. The CRM, RH and integrated CRM+RH interventions were tested in three island municipalities of Palawan. Pre-project (2001) and post-project (2007) measurements of dependent variables were gathered via biophysical and community household surveys. The results support the project’s central hypothesis that integrated coastal resource management and family planning delivered simultaneously and with community involvement generate greater impact than stand alone interventions.

        Year: 2010

        Source: Environmental Conservation

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          PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc.’s, Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management Project (IPOPCORM) has been scaled-up in the coastal Philippines. In the Siquijor Province, as IPOPCORM expanded to cover all 6 municipalities, the local Governments decided to incorporate population and reproductive health into coastal resource management legislation. IPOPCORM also experienced success scaling-up in the Danajon Bank Ecosystem, a biodiversity hotspot that experienced a loss of fisheries resources due to a dense population, leading to greater food insecurity. In this case study, IPOPCORM discusses their accomplishments in both regions and how it was achieved.

          Year: 2006

          Source: PATH Foundation Philippines Inc.

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            This document summarizes the results of a baseline survey conducted in 40 randomly-selected villages in Bohol and the Verde Island Passage in central Philippines in 2011. The study was sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded “Building Actors and Leaders for Advancing Community Excellence in Development” (BALANCED) Project to inform future activities in the Philippines. The survey covers basic reproductive health, disease management, and livelihood and marine protection behaviors among men and women in vulnerable communities on the island of Bohol. The report then compares these Bohol behaviors to those of men and women in “new” sites in the Verde Island Passage. According to the survey analysis, households in coastal villages depend on the productivity of the marine environment for their livelihoods. The report also recommends increasing the amount and quality of public participation in project activities in order to maximize health and conservation outcomes.

            Year: 2012

            Source: The BALANCED Project

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              This report shows the results of a Behavior Monitoring Survey conducted in 2012 in the communities around Saadani National Park (SANAPA) in Tanzania and a comparison with the results with those of a similar survey done three years earlier. In 2009, the BALANCED Project started working in the SANAPA area through an ongoing integrated coastal management initiative to develop and deliver integrated PHE messages through peer educators and community-based distributers of family planning commodities. In 2012, the BALANCED team conducted a follow-up survey to assess the changes in behaviors and attitudes resulting from the four years of BALANCED Project interventions. A comparison of results from the 2009 and 2012 surveys shows that the population, socioeconomic, health, and environmental conditions of those living around SANAPA have remained relatively stable between 2009 and 2012. It points as well to increased awareness of family planning and reproductive health FP/RH in the target areas, increased support amongst men for FP/RH, and increased support (by both males and females) for conservation activities.

              Year: 2013

              Source: The BALANCED Project

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                The Coastal Resources Center (CRC) of the University of Rhode Island and its partners are implementing an Integrated Coastal and Fisheries Governance (ICFG) project in all the six coastal districts of Western Region (2009-2013), with funding from USAID Ghana. The goal of the ICFG Program is to support the government of Ghana in achieving its fisheries development objectives of poverty reduction, food security, sustainable management and conservation. CRC recognizes that it will be difficult to sustain the project’s gains in the long run, however, because of the country’s high rate of population growth. Thus it is assessing the feasibility of linking Family Planning and Reproductive Health (FP/RH) interventions with ICFG’s strategies. Experiences from other developing countries show integrated population-health-environment (PHE) approaches can create synergies and results that surpass sectoral management strategies both in terms of impact and sustainability. At the request of CRC, the BALANCED3 project sent a PHE specialist to Ghana in June 2010 to meet with ICFG stakeholders and visit project field sites in Western Region to explore needs, opportunities and possible mechanism of integration. This report summarizes the consultant’s findings and recommendations for integrating FP/RH and other health, nutrition and food security interventions into the ICFG framework. It builds upon a PHE concept that was drafted by CRC’s local implementing partner – Friends of the Nation (FoN) following an exposure visit to the Philippines where local communities have been implementing family planning in conjunction with coastal conservation strategies since 2001.

                Year: 2010

                Source: Coastal Resources Center

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                  After leading implementation of the USAID-funded Integrated Coastal and Fisheries Governance (ICFG) Initiative for the Western Region of Ghana, Hen Mpoano became a registered nonprofit organization with a mission towards continuing many of the initiatives related to coastal and marine governance begun under the project. These story maps illustrate some of the work that has been done under various Hen Mpoano-led initiatives to conserve wetlands and sustainably manage small-scale fisheries in the region.

                  Year: 2018

                  Source: Hen Mpoano

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