- Recent events and policy decisions across the world are worrying conservationists and climate researchers.
- Events include funding cuts to conservation projects, countries and companies rolling back on their climate commitments, and reports of declining wildlife populations as governments continue pursuing unsustainable economic development efforts.
- Although environmental efforts globally have been impacted, community conservation solutions persist with proven impacts for biodiversity conservation while restoring nature and benefiting people.
- Here, Mongabay lists out ten unique community-led initiatives across the world that show positive and proven impacts.
Numerous events and policy decisions across the world in the last several months are causing despair among many environmentalists.
The abrupt freeze, and potential termination, of international funds for conservation have hit global conservation and environmental projects, resulting in the halt of activities that have so far aided forest and wildlife conservation and supported Indigenous peoples’ initiatives. In 2023, one of the sources of those funds, USAID, provided $375.4 million to nature conservation projects across the world.
While the lack of funds has questioned the existence of certain conservation projects, the global climate target to slash global emissions under the Paris Agreement also saw slow progress. Of the 195 countries that signed up to the Paris Agreement, 182 failed to submit upgraded targets — or “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) — to cut down on their share of emissions. The U.S. and Indonesian governments also backed away from climate goals, worrying environmentalists who say this could encourage oil extractive projects abroad as, one by one, major companies already pull out of their low carbon commitments.
While the U.N. biodiversity conference (COP16) in Rome in February saw some success, participants say governments continue funding activities that degrade ecosystems with no reduced cut on nature-destroying subsidies. A recent WWF report showed a 73% decline in wildlife populations in the last 50 years. Conservationists worry that high debts by countries from Ecuador to Nigeria will push governments to continue pursuing their unsustainable economic development efforts at the expense of environmental safeguards.
However, despite the headlines, conservation efforts by communities on the ground, in the most remote biodiverse corners of the world, continue — and adapt if need be.
Below, Mongabay tracked a list of ten unique community-led initiatives across the world with proven positive and promising impacts.
How a fun women’s gathering led to small wildcat conservation in Peru’s Andes
In the village of Licapa in the Andes of central Peru, Indigenous Quechua women joined hands to reduce human-wildlife conflict by gathering and sharing knowledge about three elusive feline species whose numbers have declined due to increased deforestation, overgrazing, road construction, wildfires and climate change.
In 2022, a group called Mujeres Quechua por la Conservación (Quechua Women United for Conservation), comprised of more than 30 local women, gathered every month to exchange their experiences, learn about the role of felines in the ecosystem and set up camera traps to monitor the wild cats.
As a part of the community-led project, they repaired chicken and guinea pig corrals to avoid small cat attacks while finding alternatives to grazing livestock, such as alpacas on the mountains and reducing pressures on queuña (Polylepis) forests to prevent puma attacks. Since the start of the one-of-a-kind project, community people saw a gradual reduction in puma and other wildcat attacks on livestock.
After trial and error, Mexican fishers find key to reforesting a mangrove haven
In the El Delgadito village that lies within the El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, David Borbón, a fisherman, with his family and community members, has so far planted more than 1.8 million mangroves across more than 63 hectares (155 acres) and recovered its vast ecosystem under a mangrove restoration project.
The reserve area that has been historically susceptible to hurricanes is home to the desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni), northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) and more than 180 bird species.
Among the four species of mangroves found in Mexico, the plantation of red (Rhizophora mangle) and white mangroves (Laguncularia racemosa) varieties has helped the community prevent coastal erosion, store carbon and fight hurricanes. Despite losing 47 hectares (116 acres) of mangroves to powerful hurricanes in 2022 and 2023, Borbón and the community members continue to push their efforts to restore the mangrove ecosystem.
In a fight to save a rare bird, Indigenous communities in Guyana are winning
The South Rupununi Conservation Society (SRCS) led by the local Indigenous communities in Guyana’s south Rupununi region, has shown promise in protecting the red siskin (Spinus cucullatus), an endangered bird threatened by illegal trading for its colorful plumage and song.
Once common across tropical South America, the species disappeared from the region until communities recorded a population in 2000. The organization established one of the country’s first conservation zones covering 75,000 hectares (185,000 acres) of Indigenous land to protect the species, which also won them the Whitley Award to expand the area and strengthen its monitoring, management and sustainability.
The organization monitored the forest to fight illegal activity and has adopted traditional fire strategies to mitigate the increasing wildfires responsible for tree loss and deforestation in Guyana. The community’s people have implemented an after-school program in more than 16 communities to effectively protect the species and its habitats and check potential threats.
In remote Philippine villages, micro-hydro alternatives power Indigenous homes
Indigenous villages in the Cordillera region of northern Philippines have switched to small renewable energy generators to power their homes and schools with the support of an NGO that channeled funds to many of the micro-hydro projects in the country.
Villagers worked together to carry cement, machine parts and sacks of iron on their backs and on horseback through the thickets, across rivers of the upland terrains that remain untouched by road facilities.
In two decades, the NGO with the Indigenous Igorot people succeeded with the construction of 22 micro-hydro generators, 13 of them in Abra province within the region. Each generator now powers about a hundred households.
Amid the lack of electrification in remote areas and community conflict over mega hydroelectric dams, micro-hydro initiatives with small environmental footprints have emerged as a viable and cost-efficient alternative for these marginalized communities.
Indigenous Gurung farmers revive climate-resilient millet in Nepal
Indigenous Gurung farmers in central Nepal have revived the cultivation of foxtail millet, farmed as a famine crop, while preserving 63 local rice varieties under an initiative led by a local communal seed bank started by community people in 2016.
With the region impacted by unpredictable changes in weather and droughts that affected their harvests, people from the community joined hands to actively harvest the climate-resilient crop to gather the produce at the seed bank to be sold in the local markets, given their increasing demand and health benefits.
Over seven years since the initiative, the farmers’ millet production saw a 4% increase in 2021 and 2022, amounting to 339,462 metric tons more than the previous year, along with the millet cultivation expanding from 0.15 to 5 hectares (0.37 to 12.4 acres).
Beekeeping helps villagers tend coastal forests in Thai mangrove hotspot
In southern Thailand, villagers in Ban Nai Nang have developed a mangrove conservation model based on beekeeping, so far managing more than 600 hectares (1,500 acres) of local mangroves as a forest.
Although around 80% of the mangroves around the village had been lost by mid-1990s and villagers in the past viewed mangroves as useless forests with no benefits, the 2004 tsunami changed their perspective on mangrove conservation.
The villagers earned money from harvesting honey from native honeybees and stingless bees that were pollinators of mangrove trees, which further helped in the natural regeneration of mangroves, making it a suitable habitat for fish, shellfish and shrimp that the community depended on.
A total of 32 families reared 1,200 beehives and produced more than 177 liters (47 gallons) of honey from the raw honey and earned income selling processed products, such as shampoo, soap, lotions, balms and sweets. They also manufactured and sold beehives and starter bee colonies to nearby communities, earning a stable monthly income.
A community-led strategy to save Brazil’s dry forests from desertification
In the face of drought and desertification, 35 communities in northeastern Brazil have conserved and recovered nearly 40,468 hectares (100,000 acres) of Caatinga dry forest under the Recaatingamento project that has been developed since 2009.
Since overpopulated goats and sheep heavily survived on tree shoots of varied species, resulting in the loss of native vegetation, local communities started restoring the dry forest through fencing thousands of hectares of Caatinga area and isolating them from goats, sheep and human intervention.
After a 10-year isolation period, the communities noticed changes in the landscape, with restored vegetation and the recovery of ground-covered plants improving soil and water retention. But to maintain restoration in the long term, families learned to invest in wild fruits, and communities established a Feed House that made fodder from exotic plants to feed their animals.
Uganda community group restores shea groves and livelihoods
With Indigenous knowledge and the use of agroforestry techniques, the Pader Shea Nut and Agro-processing Society in northern Uganda has restored more than 500 hectares (1,240 acres) of degraded land, planting shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) and other native species that make up a significant part of their food systems and local economy.
The initiative that began with six members in 2004 has expanded to more than 1,400 members who have worked collaboratively, engaged with tree-planting and economic development programs to empower community people while fighting poverty.
Shea farmers have traditionally practiced agroforestry systems by maintaining shea and other tree species and allowing them to regenerate naturally on fallow land. This practice has created a balance in crop production and ecological preservation across Africa’s dryland belt that runs from Senegal in the west to Uganda and Ethiopia in the east.
From debt to diversity: A journey of rewilding, carbon capture and hope
Rewilding efforts, led by a British couple Isabella Tree and Charles Burrell, have transformed an English Knepp estate from a debt-ridden, conventional farm to a profitable haven of biodiversity.
U.K. government-funded research also shows that the rewilded farmland at Knepp absorbs more carbon dioxide than conventional farms, providing hope for climate change mitigation and soil restoration.
The U.K. is transitioning to a new environmental land management framework offering incentives for practices that restore soil health and biodiversity, but private investment is still needed to bridge the funding gap. Nature restoration investment mechanisms to attract private investment are being developed using Knepp data and government funding.
Funerary practices in Fiji protect marine areas while honoring the deceased
For generations, Indigenous (iTaukei) people across Fiji have protected their freshwater and marine areas in memory of their respected and loved ones who have passed away. These areas, known as aquatic funerary protected areas (FPAs) are normally protected for 100 nights or a year as tabu (no-go closed-off areas) areas, which are restricted from harvesting fish or turtle species.
From 1960 to 2019, communities established a total of 188 FPAs where 44% of FPAs were protected for 100 nights, and 47% protected all resources and associated ecosystems from fishing and harvesting.
Although largely undocumented, local community people and researchers say these cultural practices have ensured food sovereignty and sustainable resource management and helped to present a community marine conservation solution in the region.
Banner image: Leroy Ignacio is president of the South Rupununi Conservation Society, which works to protect the red siskin. Image courtesy of Chung Liu/SRCS.
Indigenous leaders optimistic after resumed U.N. biodiversity conference in Rome
Related Mongabay podcast episode: How coastal communities are adapting to sea level rise with ‘living shorelines’. Listen here:
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