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THE PCRA
PROCESS
Community
entry and participation
Gathering documented
information
Participant
observation
Interviewing
individuals/groups
Conducting household
surveys
Identifying/classifying resources
Mapping
Documenting historical
trends
Calendar or transect diagrams
Producing coastal area profile
PCRA as a project monitoring
tool
This section of oneocean.org is based on the
1998 publication Participatory Coastal Resource Assessment: A Handbook for Community Workers and Coastal
Resource Managers
(by Jeffrey S Walters, James Maragos, Susana Siar and Alan T White) of CRMP, a project of the
DENR, and COE-CRM, a
project of Silliman University, which are funded by USAID.
Click here to download PCRA Handbook. |
PARTICIPATORY COASTAL RESOURCE
ASSESSMENT (PCRA)
What is
PCRA?
Key features of PCRA
Benefits of PCRA
WHAT IS PCRA?
Resource assessment, or what some call resource analysis or
appraisal, is accomplished primarily to facilitate the
numerous
decisions that must be made in planning
and implementing
successful CRM. PCRA focuses on
resource assessment from
the perspective of local coastal resource
users. It involves the
following
inter-related steps:
- Gathering of documented information.PCRA is an
information-based process, and a good way to
start is with
existing documented information, including reports,
planning documents, legal documents, maps, satellite
images, and photographs.
- Direct observation of and
participation in assessing
the local coastal
resource system.This
involves organizing
the community, validating the information you
collected, and
gathering information about the local coastal resource
system through direct observation and participation in habitat
and
resource assessment. It requires proficiency in
community entry and other
aspects of effective community
organizing and development in Philippine
coastal
communities, and habitat and resource assessment.
- Purposeful gathering of local knowledge.This involves the use
of data gathering methods, which are
accomplished to some
extent through household surveys and interviews with
individuals or workshops conducted
with groups.
- Generation of local feedback.The PCRA process must
encourage feedback from resource users.
Local feedback is
crucial, as local resource users are more likely to
consider in
their planning decisions information that they helped generate
than information that comes from outside sources.
- Analysis and integration of
information generated into a
document called "coastal
area profile".The coastal area profile,
a document
which presents the results of PCRA field methods in ways that will assist CRM
planning decisions, is one of the most important outcomes of PCRA. The basic
descriptive information provided by profiles is useful, but the value of a
good profile lies also in the compilation and analysis of the information it
provides.
KEY FEATURES OF PCRA
1. It is a multi-faceted process.
2. It is made from the perspective of resource users.
3. It integrates the knowledge of
coastal resource users and
stakeholders and that of experts.
BENEFITS OF PCRA
1. It makes local knowledge available for CRM planning
2. It makes resource management more participatory
3. It encourages people
participation in subsequent CRM phases
4. It demonstrates the relevance of
local information in resource
management. |
