As pressure on wildlife and habitat continue to increase, we need to find sustainable and effective ways to develop and implement conservation solutions. Many wildlife conservation programs and projects work to improve equitable benefit sharing of the economic value of wildlife as the primary incentive for communities to conserve wildlife. These projects are often successful while the project funding continues, but what happens when the funding is pulled or when another more lucrative opportunity is offered to exploit the land or wildlife?  How can a project be successful in generating support within the community and reflect the true values of a deep connection to wildlife, the land, and fellow community members?  Non-economic factors like health and education have been incorporated into conservation projects, while other important societal factors such as cultural diversity and resilience, community vitality, and good governance are beginning to be explored by innovative conservation project managers. These factors, when clearly understood and assessed from the community perspective, fundamentally enhance the happiness and wellbeing of the community and ultimately will contribute to the success of wildlife conservation projects over the long term while also supporting greater community cohesion and ecosystem health.

Using a framework (such as GNH) to plan community-based wildlife conservation programs around an holistic set of social wellbeing indicators can contribute to positive wildlife conservation outcomes and project sustainability. Findings indicate that structured and deliberate community engagement of project planning and implementation – or better yet facilitating the community to drive conservation – is essential to success. Future research recommendations include the development and testing of a survey tool to analyze the wellbeing of a community organized around the GNH domains, or other human wellbeing indexes.

Key Themes:

Engagement, Education and Empowerment, Governance, Rights & Conflict, Factors of Success in Community Conservation

Presenters:

Beth Allgood (International Fund for Animal Welfare)

Mark Hofberg (International Fund for Animal Welfare)

Anna Rathmann (Great Plains Conservation Foundation)

Fernando Ochoa (Conservation Alliance for Laguna San Ignacio)

Presented Material:

This session explored how community-scientist teams around the world are changing the process of science by working closely together on conservation and livelihoods issues. We call this approach ‘transformative science with society’. This new science brings together participatory action research, citizen science, transdisciplinary science, adaptive ecosystem management and community development to catalyze transformations in social-ecological systems.

This approach and its framework were discribed by presenters, along with why it grew from the practice of working with communities on conservation and livelihoods. The core of this approach, co-production of knowledge, where local and indigenous knowledge holders bring their knowledge together with that of scientists, was discussed to address critical issues in community conservation. Two examples were shared here, one example examined community conservation through sacred sites, and another looked at herder and scientist observations of rangeland health in community-based conservation initiatives across Mongolia.  A final presentation shed light on scientist-manager partnerships to support conservation and ranching livelihoods in the western US.

The session took the format of a ‘fish bowl’, starting with short talks, and ending with an extended discussion session, concluding with thoughts on the next steps forward for this democratized science approach in support of community-based conservation.

Key Themes:

Factors of Success in Community Conservation, Livelihoods, Governance, Rights & Conflict, Engagement, Education & Empowerment

Presenters:

Robin Reid (Colorado State University)

Maria Fernandez-Gimenez (Colorado State University)

Corrie Knapp (Western State Colorado University)

Fikret Berkes (University of Manitoba)

Chantsallkham Jamsranjav (Colorado State University)

An intergenerational panel (consisting of a member from the Statutory Māori Advisory Committee, the Manahautū (General Manager Māori) and a Youth member of the Māori Policy and Operations Unit at the Environmental Protection Authority) discussed the influence of Māori (the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa, New Zealand) on the policies and practices of the New Zealand Environmental Protection Authority, a Crown agent, in its decision-making. In particular, the panel highlights how incorporating Māori perspectives, Mātauranga Māori (Māori traditional knowledge) and the direct involvement of Māori through a statutory Māori Advisory Committee, Ngā Kaihautū Tikanga Taiao, has managed to affect policy, practice and standards of evidence in a mutually beneficial way.

The journey has not been an easy one and has taken over 20 years through changing political and Māori priorities, but it has nevertheless managed to continue to move forward and evolve.

This session was an opportunity for learning and an exchange of experiences and knowledge, to build partnerships and to help shape the future of how government organisations meaningfully engage with indigenous peoples.

Key Themes:

Indigenous Issues, Governance, Rights & Conflict, Engagement, Education & Empowerment, Climate & Environmental Changes

Presenters:

Doug Jones (Te Mana Rauhī Taiao – Environmental Protection Authority)

Te Taiawatea Moko-Mead (Te Mana Rauhī Taiao – Environmental Protection Authority)

Presented Material:

Dispossession and restricted access of Indigenous Peoples to traditional lands and waters are a common feature in many of the world’s coastal areas due to the economic value of resources found in the coastal zone (e.g., mineral resources, forest products, wildlife, and fisheries resources) and the disregard for Indigenous Peoples’ rights, cultural practices and systems of governance. This ongoing disregard for indigenous peoples’ rights and needs continues despite the existence of a raft of international and regional instruments to respect and protect such rights. Here we examine the dispossession of local indigenous people to traditional fishing grounds and adjacent lands in South Africa and Canada’s Pacific Northwest Coast and the struggles and strategies employed to secure rights of access to these areas and resources. Dispossession and restricted access have been a feature of South Africa and Canada’s socio-political past from earliest Colonial times until the present time. From early Colonial times in Canada and in South Africa, forced removals of Indigenous Peoples from traditional lands, restrictions on customary fishing, hunting and forestry practices were largely driven by racially based ideologies supported by discriminatory policies and laws that facilitated ownership of and access to common pool resources for a particular sector of the population. However, despite the demise of these oppressive and discriminatory regimes and the promulgation of legal provisions in both countries to support redress and restoration of socio-economic rights, these rights have not been secured and customary systems of marine resource governance have not been respected.

Key Themes:

Indigenous Issues, Governance, Rights & Conflict, Livelihoods, Engagement, Education & Empowerment

Presenters:

Merle Sowman (University of Cape Town)

Dawn Foxcroft (Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council)

Don Hall (Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council)

Lissa Cowan (Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council)

During this session, presenters offered comparative account of the struggles of traditional fishers in South Africa and the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations in Canada to have their socio-economic rights to fisheries resources recognised and restored. A historical review of the two contexts, outlining the marginalisation and exclusion of these groups from the mainstream economy, examines the efforts and strategies of traditional fishers to have their rights to marine resources recognised through legal action.

Presented Material:

Lawaiʻa pono means to fish righteously, in ways that honor the time-tested values and sustainable practices of our kūpuna (ancestors).  Mālama ʻāina (to care for that which feeds; biocultural resources) is a challenge shared by island nations and indigenous and local communities worldwide. Traditional natural resource management practices in Hawai’i drew upon the place-based knowledge, observations, and experiences of community members and local experts known as “konohiki.” Hawaiians once used these konohiki systems and traditions to ensure an abundance of resources from the mountains to the sea.

Through short film presentations and discussions, this session touched on some of the experiences of communities from around Hawaiʻi who work with state and federal government, conservation partners, researchers and landowners, to implement community-based management solutions for their places.  Presenters shared insight about the role of Community-Based biocultural management in Hawaiʻi in the nearshore environment and the place-based fishing practices and stewardship efforts they have implemented to pass on traditional fishing knowledge and values to perpetuate the practice of “lawaiʻa pono.”  Representatives shared how the collective efforts of grassroots communities empowers community conservation, enhances community health and well-being, and ensures a future of healthy abundant resources for generations to come.

Key Themes:

Indigenous Issues, Livelihoods, Governance, Rights & Conflict, Climate & Environmental Changes

Films presented:

THE HOAʻĀINA OF HĀʻENA – In 2015, a group of lineal families on the north coast of Kauaʻi successfully worked with the State of Hawaiʻi to establish Hawaiʻi’s first Community-based Subsistence Fishing Area (CBSFA). This short film tells the inspirational story of a rural Hawaiian community’s journey to perpetuate the traditional and customary practices of their ancestors and the collective effort it took to make it happen.

HANAI KO’A: CULTURE KEEPERS – A short produce by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs on the ʻōpelu fishing families of Hoʻokena, Hawaiʻi.

Presenters:

Kevin Chang (Kua ʻĀina Ulu ʻAuamo (KUA))

Mehana Vaughan (University of Hawaiʻi)

Shaelene Kamaka’ala (State of Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources Community-based Fisheries Planner; Kahana Kilo Kai; E Alu Pu Council (O’ahu Island))

Charles Young (Kama’aina United to Protect the ‘Aina (KUPA); Kai Kuleana Network, West Hawai’i Fisheries Council; E Alu Pu Council (Hawai’i Island))

Solomon Kaho’ohalahala (Maunalei Ahupuaʻa Community Mauka-Makai Managed Area (Maunalei Ahupuaʻa CMMMA), E Alu Pu Council (Lana’i island))

Successful biodiversity conservation is a complex endeavor, hinging on women and men sustainably managing lands and natural resources. For 30 years, Conservation International (CI) has delivered successful conservation outcomes by empowering rural Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities to responsibly and sustainably care for nature. Through partner communities, work is done with men and women at all scales to strengthen their voices to advocate for conservation and the myriad benefits for humanity. CI and partners aims to foster effective, locally-led governance of biodiversity and equitable access to and sharing of nature’s benefits.

At the community level, conflict is a significant threat to men, women and children who rely on natural resources for their very survival. Environmental degradation has been directly used as a weapon of war, ecosystems have been physically destroyed or polluted, natural assets have been liquidated by local and displaced populations attempting to survive socio-economic disruption, and environmental management, oversight and enforcement structures have collapsed. These impacts from conflict pose significant risks to the communities’ health, livelihoods and security.

This workshop for community leaders and members contributed to the development of skills in conflict analysis and consensus-building. It’s aim was to increase awareness of multiple dimensions of conflict in natural resource management, and help community members build basic skills in mapping root causes of conflict through case study exercises focused on forest communities in Bolivia and Peru. The workshop included an overview presentation on existing approaches to environmental peacebuilding initiatives for communities, followed by a skills building session on conflict analysis.

Key Themes:

Governance, Rights, & Conflict, Engagement, Education & Empowerment, Climate & Environmental Changes

Presented Material:

Presenters:

Janet Edmond (Conservation International), Lydia Cardona (Conservation International)

Despite the rapid growth of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) interventions and studies examining these interventions, a limited evidence base describes what works, what doesn’t, and why. Mirroring the evidence base across the broader conservation sector (Bowler et al. 2010; McKinnon et al. 2016), most CBNRM studies are narrowly focused on single cases or single outcomes. As a result, decision makers continue to find themselves “shooting in the dark,” not knowing if their choices will benefit people, nature, both, or neither (Agarwal and Redford 2006).

The Alliance for Conservation and Evidence and Sustainability (ACES) is a newly formed coalition of NGOs and universities that seeks to both generate and synthesize evidence to support CBNRM implementation, and foster evidence-based decision making in conservation practice. The Alliance partners have developed a shared conceptual framework and key learning questions designed to advance the evidence base on the emergence, outcomes and spread of CBNRM, enabling learning to be shared across organizations and the broader conservation community.

The use of knowledge and evidence in CBNRM decision-making is fundamental to the Alliance. As decision-making processes are often political and context specific, there is no single practice or method that is known to effectively foster evidence-based decisions. This knowledge café sought to unpack this challenge and explore broadly questions around evidence-based decision making in community-based conservation, through harnessing insights from the diverse participants at the Communities, Conservation & Livelihoods conference, and bring in diverse perspectives to explore questions such as:

• What are the different decision-making forums where knowledge inform decisions in community-based conservation?
• What are the barriers to evidence-based decision making for conservation and what are ways they can be overcome?
• What are ways to bring together different types of knowledge for decision making?
• What are some of the biggest unanswered questions or knowledge gaps in community-based conservation?

 

– Shauna Mahajan (WWF), Louise Glew (WWF), Michael Painter (Wildlife Conservation Society) (May 2018)

Key Themes: 

Governance, Rights & Conflict, Engagement, Education & Empowerment, Livelihoods, Wildlife & Fisheries

“Over the years, environmental organizations have been increasingly recognizing the value of engaging underrepresented groups in conservation efforts. However, for many organizations, engaging diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has been difficult to implement effectively. One major problem is the difficulty of reconciling the Western conservation mission of safeguarding the world’s ecosystems with the knowledge, interests, values, issues, and protocols of people who have been historically excluded from the environmental movement. In many cases, ideas and practices considered “normal” in conservation circles are predicated on white, male, Christian, middle/upper class ideologies that privilege Western knowledge, economic efficiency, and paternalistic authority. While these biases are often enacted unconsciously, they greatly impact conservationists’ interactions with Indigenous and other communities of color in ways that they often fail to apprehend. In order to engage underrepresented groups in equitable and effective partnerships, we must question “normal” ways of thinking and behaving. In this session, we challenge “normal” by centering the inner work of DEI using a hybrid of Indigenous, Black, and common Western learning methods. We will begin the session by looking at current literature on organizational diversity through the lenses of Black and Anishinaabe perspectives in order to understand how racial stereotyping and “us vs. them” behavior that can occur within conservation organizations. Afterwards, the audience will be invited to participate in a sharing circle where Anishinaabe protocol and process will be utilized to talk about how we can challenge stereotyping and other exclusionary behaviors in our work. The goal of this session is to focus on DEI as a multi-faceted process of self-reflection and discovery that helps to open up spaces of compassion for having difficult dialogues about our differences and similarities as well their implications for engaging DEI in conservation.”

-Janae Davis (Clark University), Mackenzie Lespérance (rare Charitable Research Reserve)

Key Themes:

Governance, Rights & Conflict, Indigenous Issues, Factors of Success in Community Conservation

Something special happened in Canada in 2015; the parks community, representing 200 thought-leaders and decision makers from all coasts and geo-political regions throughout the country, met to determine shared goals and priority actions resulting in distinct practices and individual responsibilities. Invited by the Canadian Parks Council (CPC) and the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association (CPRA), governments and leaders from municipal, provincial, territorial and Indigenous perspectives, joined forces with academics, youth, non-government organizations, and industry to see, learn, speak and hear how we interact with each other, with species, and with the land.  What surfaced, through honest dialogue and a view to share and conserve the powerful benefits of Nature, was a united commitment to establish connected Canadian park lands and waters that support healthy Nature and healthy people.

As a unique national response to the IUCN’s #NatureForAll global movement, Parks for All: An Action Plan for Canada’s Parks Community, published in 2018, has helped to support a “new normal” for conservation action in Canada. Grounded in four strategic priorities — collaborate, connect, conserve and lead — the action plan identifies specific actions individuals and organizations can undertake to better our collective future where communities thrive without depleting the environment.

This represents a significant paradigm shift articulated in Parks for All, and will reinforce, by example, a very specific Canadian initiative that has put the paradigm shift into practice.  The Pathway to Canada Target 1 is the process through which Canada is working to achieve the terrestrial goal associated with Aichi Target 11 — a commitment to protect at least 17% of Canada’s land and inland waters.  Experts representing local perspectives and national interests involved in Parks for All and the Pathway to Canada Target 1 shared insight into the following questions: 1) what are the principles associated with the paradigm shift; 2) what conditions in Canada enabled an openness to work differently across governments and sectors for better conservation outcomes; and, 3) how can the Canadian model of unrepressed collaboration be extended to other community development initiatives that aim to sustain livelihoods, conserve local environments, while loving Nature.

Key Themes:

Factors of Success in Community Conservation, Climate and Environmental Changes, Engagement, Education & Empowerment, Governance, Rights & Conflict

Presenters:

Dawn Carr (Canadian Parks Council), Scott Jones (Government of Alberta)

The integration of indigenous knowledge and social science into conservation is essential for addressing 21^st century challenges for conservation and the sustainable management of natural resources. This integration requires, in many cases, organizational transformation for effective conservation science, policy, and practice, and this begins with better understanding of recipes for success and lessons learned by early adopters. While research has discussed barriers to integration and disconnects between social and natural scientists, as well as between scientists and knowledge producers, it has rarely addressed how to support individuals in pioneering positions to overcome challenges, particularly with regard to integrating indigenous peoples and local communities and their traditional knowledge. Connections between scientists, practitioners and community members are essential, as different types of knowledge can learn from each other. We are exploring building a community of practice and sharing insights learned in this session as a starting point. Community members can benefit from understanding how their knowledge can inform research and conservation action and their voice and participation in this conversation is invaluable.

Key discussion topics:

• Experiences integrating indigenous and local knowledge and social sciences into conservation science, organizations and projects,
• What happens after research or projects are designed and undertaken; who owns or gets to use data? How are results shared? How to deal with data repatriation?
• Sharing success stories: what projects or organizations are already integrating indigenous knowledge and social sciences into conservation and what can we learn from them?

Key Themes:

Factors of Success in Community Conservation, Indigenous Issues, Livelihoods, Engagement, Education & Empowerment

Presented Material:

Speakers:

Seline Meijer (IUCN), Kathleen E Halvorsen (Michigan Technological University), Erin Pischke (Michigan Technological University), Pasang Dolma Sherpa (CIPRED), Osvaldo Munguia (MOPAWI)