Component 1: 

Establishment of the Protected Area.

Major activities include maintaining stakeholder and Local Level, Provincial and National Government engagement, GPS mapping of Protected Areas and working with the gazettal process to endorse the Protected Area.

Conservation Area

A major objective for the Tenkile Conservation Alliance (TCA) is to establish the Torricelli Mountain Range as a Protected Area. This will provide the legal protection from not only large scale commercial development such as logging and mining but protect species from local impact such as over hunting and harvesting of natural resources. The approach is one of a “bottom up” approach where resource owners have agreed to establish the protected area, established their own rules and penalties and designated hunting areas from non-hunting areas. Each village has established a Conservation Area Management Committee who have been trained in natural resource management to manage the protected area accordingly.

Contact us to receive a copy of the CAM Training Manual.

Local landowners and leaders from the 50 participating villages have discussed their ideas and concerns regarding the protected area before they participated in a brief mapping workshop that provided them with a visual display of their natural resources so that they could make an informed choice as to how to utilise their resources now and in the future. TCA staff then walked around the conservation area boundaries using GPS. This map is incomplete and requires further work, particularly with the Weimang villages.

To assist in this important work please click here.

When the Torricelli Mountain Range becomes a protected area known as a Conservation Area, it will be the first protected area for Sandaun Province.

Component 2: 

Management of the Protected Area.

Major activities include maintaining stakeholder and Local Level, Provincial and National Government engagement, GPS mapping of Protected Areas and working with the gazettal process to endorse the Protected Area.

Major activities include training local stakeholders in natural resource management, which includes combining scientific and local indigenous knowledge of important fauna and flora, climate change and practical sustainable resource harvesting techniques, regulate local bi-laws etc.

Conservation Area Management

The Conservation Area proposal for the Torricelli Mountain Range has been submitted to the PNG government – June 2019. TCA is working closely with the PNG Government, and other organisations, on Protected Areas and their sustainability within the PNG context.

TCA works closely with the local landowners to maximise existing conservation area boundaries and to encompass new villages. The Conservation Area is presently proposed to be over 185,000 hectares in size.

One of the major aims for TCA is to establish the Torricelli Mountain Range as a Conservation Area – TMRCA. Through education programs and most other work TCA has been doing, we are close to achieving this. Several representatives from each village have participated in training courses which enables them to better manage their natural resources. A training manual has been written and workshops conducted at our training centre at TCA Base-Lumi. Each village has a Conservation Area Management Committee who have the knowledge and skills to manage the natural resources and ultimately protect the Torricelli Mountain Range Conservation Area (TMRCA) forever.

TCA have trained the Project Officers, Research Officers and Rangers on recording Biodiversity and monitoring forest resources using camera traps, smart phone apps and direct observations.

Contact us to receive a copy of the Conservation Area Training Manual.

Research – Forest Monitoring using Lukim Gather

TCA has assisted the Conservation Environment Protection Authority (CEPA) to develop a Protected Area Monitoring tool known as “Lukim Gather” which provides valuable information on community perceptions and attitudes towards the environment. This tool is based on the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Monitoring Evaluation Tracking Tool (METT).  The tool is used globally to monitor and manage Protected Areas. TCA staff use the tool on a smart phone to conduct interviews with local community representatives and data is analysed via a cloud based software known as KoBo toolbox. The interview process is engaging and initiates a dialogue important for land use planning and engendering support for conservation activities.

Research – Forest Monitoring using Cybertracker (SMART)

In addition to the Lukim Gather smart phone app, TCA Research Officers are also using the Cybertracker phone app to record any breeches of the Conservation Area rules during their patrols throughout the Torricelli Mountain Range and the project area. Data from the Cybertracker app is downloaded onto a computer program known as SMART which stands for Spatial Monitoring And Reporting Tool. This software is used to analyse the data and produce reports. Each record or photo taken by the Research Officers and Rangers is geo referenced, building an on-going database of what species are present in the area and where they are found.

The tool helps TCA gather data which will inform the Conservation Area Management Committees of what to monitor and manage in terms of protecting their natural resources.