Alternative Livelihood Development:
A Strategy for Sustaining Coastal Resources

By Ma. Monina M. Flores
Enterprise Development Specialist
Coastal Resource Management Project

n the practical field experience of many organizations, the question of livelihood always looms large in the development and environment equation. In coastal resource management, alternative livelihood is recognized as a very crucial strategy for sustaining coastal resources. There are two main reasons for this.

The first reason is because alternative livelihoods provide an economic fallback for fishers who would be displaced by the enforcement of access restrictions to certain marine protected areas or by the enforcement of laws against destructive fishing. Having a fallback increases the chance against backsliding into old habits due to economic contingencies in coastal households.

The second is because alternative livelihoods provide an economic incentive for fishers to reduce fishing effort by shifting to other potential sources of income, especially as fishery resources become scarcer.

In both scenarios, the aim would be to ease economic pressure off coastal and marine resources to allow these to regenerate naturally and continuously.
The introduction of alternative livelihoods alone, however, does not guarantee the sustainability of resources. This has to be accompanied by complementary strategies that help raise the awareness of coastal resource users and build their capability to plan and manage their resources well. Without careful planning, alternative livelihoods could lead to more environmental problems.

What works?
One way of providing alternative livelihoods is to create enterprises that provide opportunities for self-employment and generation of surplus capital to community members. Enterprises will have more impact on the behavior of resource users if these gainfully employ a substantial number of people. And, having a steady flow of surplus capital favors expansion and enhancement of the competitive edge of the community enterprises and thus increases community benefits.

The following criteria may be used for selecting enterprises that could meet the above requirements:

1. The enterprise should be based on a specific commodity or service.
2. The commodity or service meets a strategic market demand that is not filled by other suppliers and may be accessed by the community over the long term.
3. The margin is good and potential revenue exceeds cost (including loan interest) by at least 20%.
4. At least 10 coastal community families should participate in each type of enterprise so that their aggregate production output could satisfy commercial volume requirements.
5. Commodity production is suitable to the site.
6. The community participants are committed and capable of producing the commodity.
7. The community participants have access rights to the resource base.
8. The resources for start-up production and marketing are available.
9. The alternative enterprise will not add to environmental degradation.

What are some environmental considerations?
In the selection, planning and operation of enterprises, the following coastal environmental impacts should be avoided:

1. Deterioration of seawater quality due to pollutants, toxic chemicals and siltation. Common culprits are industrial effluence, fish feeds, animal and human wastes, garbage, oil spills, etc.
2. Destruction of natural habitat such as poisoning, siltation, and degradation of corals; overharvesting of mangroves; removal and trampling of seagrass beds. Causes include sea farming operations, construction of ports and wharves, sea walls, beach resorts, boat anchorage, quarrying for construction materials, etc.
3. Alteration of physical conditions affecting ecological balance, including blocking of water motion, mining of sand and stone, etc. Common causes are the building of sea farming structures, fish cages and pens, sea walls, and ports, and quarrying for construction materials.
4. Decline of mature stocks from the wild. Common causes are fry gathering, gathering of high-value wildlife products, construction of fish-aggregating devices (including payaos), commercial fisheries, etc.

Shown below are some alternative livelihood activities developed for CRMP learning areas:

Community-based ecotourism in Sabang, Olango Island, Lapu Lapu City

How could alternative livelihood development be implemented?

1. Set your goal for alternative livelihood. Often, it is easier to aim for the generation of supplementary incomes for subsistence fishers than it is to aim for alternative incomes for destructive fishers. The economic requirements and risks are higher for livelihood programs that involve destructive fishers, but, if these area achieved, the impacts would be greater and immediately felt.
2. Based on your goal, identify your enterprise sites and community partners. Choose sites that have the potential to be productive and are not environmentally critical. Select communities that have the potential to play a strategic role in relation to the management of a critical resource area, such as a gateway community to a protected marine environment. In doing so, you are effectively positioning the project to achieve wider impacts beyond the actual number of community participants that are directly benefited. Community participants should include critical users of resources as well as potential catalysts of change.
3. Together with your community partners, choose the appropriate enterprise for your identified site. Involve your government and private sector partners, so you are assured of their support for the rest of the product development cycle. Selection of enterprise should be guided by information from an appraisal of area resources, marketing potentials and constraints, carrying capacity of the environment, and socio-cultural sensitivity of communities.
4. Once the commodity is chosen, test the feasibility of producing the product in the community. Initial orientation and training may be conducted to equip the community participants with production skills. Prior to this, community participants are carefully selected for their interest, willingness to put up counterpart resource (in kind or labor), and strategic role in relation to resource management concerns.
5. After production trials are found to be successful, develop and write your business plan and use it as your blueprint for the implementation of the business. The business plan should clearly define the goal of the business and the strategies on how to achieve them. Activities are implemented to access start-up financing and technical expertise. The market is scanned to determine existing demand and supply, and to initially identify potential marketing linkages.
6. Begin commercial production and marketing as soon as the resources are ready, and after technical feasibility has been verified. Formal business organizations as well as managing and operating systems are organized and installed to establish community ownership and management of the enterprises. When starting a community business, it is important to focus community efforts on production and to tap existing marketing channels to distribute the products for the community.
   In marketing the products, the environmental values of the enterprise can and should be optimized to:
   a. educate the market about environmental values
   b. position the product to capture appropriate market segments
   c. promote support for the enterprise.
   
7. Monitor and periodically evaluate the progress of the business to appropriately respond to changing conditions, solve problems, and implement management of environmental impacts.

Three things to remember

When developing sustainable community enterprises that provide alternative livelihoods, keep in mind three things:

1. The business must operate profitably while providing for optimum livelihood benefits for its employees or members.
2. The design and conduct of the business, including its facilities must be consistent with sound environmental management practices that are fully understood by the community participants involved. Support from mandated public bodies should be sought to secure policy and tenurial mechanisms for sustainability of the business. Business participants should be linked to resource management responsibilities to raise their awareness of the need for and participation in sustaining the resources on which their livelihoods are based.
3. Community participants must be organized and equipped to manage their business profitably, distribute benefits equitably, manage potential conflicts by themselves, and conserve the resources along with other members of the community.