Indigenous and local communities’ initiatives are driving positive social and environmental change in the Mono Transboundary Biosphere Reserve in the Benin Republic, West Africa

Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) have been using their knowledge to cope with severe environmental change and promote sustainability at the local level in Africa. Their environmental conservation efforts through Indigenous practices are enabling positive social and environmental change. Such efforts respond to the growing consensus of a need to unpack how to enable positive change in Africa using Indigenous practices. However, there is sparse evidence of scientific research addressing the contribution of those practices through local initiatives to enable change in West Africa. This is a missed opportunity to explore the key role that IPLCs and their initiatives play in bringing about positive change in conservation at the local level. To fill the gap, this paper investigated the genesis of two locally led initiatives in the Mono Transboundary Biosphere Reserve (MTBR) in the Benin Republic, how they have been operating, and how they were used as a starting point to enable positive change at the local level in the reserve in West Africa. In total, among the 53 Indigenous practice holders interviewed through semi-structured interviews in four villages in the MTBR, only 18 mentioned Indigenous initiatives, which were subsequently included in the analysis. The findings show that Indigenous initiatives with their unique beliefs, customary laws, and associated knowledge have positive impacts on IPLC’s lives and benefit the quest for mangrove ecosystem sustainability in the Benin Republic. The initiatives helped protect aquatic resources from being harvested by many inhabitants in the reserve because of their Indigenous set of rules and practices and associated customary laws. Aspects of equity, social justice, and addressing conflict have also been managed since the establishment of the initiatives. However, this study suggests concerted efforts are still needed to bring about positive change at a larger scale. There is also a call to ensure that IPLCs, whose perspectives are underrepresented in conservation decision-making processes, are granted equal rights, heard, and empowered to act with support from fair and accessible funding systems.