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Earth Week Webinar: Community-led Conservation in Africa

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Conservation done differently:

Key insights on why community-led conservation in Africa is working

“We are seeing [conservation] as a bottom up approach unlike before which was more top down...Local communities who are on the frontlines are accelerating these changes - it's also about the benefits that are now trickling down to the communities." 
-Daniel Sopia, CEO MMWCA

There is a growing global consensus that to address the biodiversity and climate change crisis we face, and to protect and restore ecosystems, we need to support and scale the solutions that indigenous people, local communities, and grassroots initiatives offer. Scientists agree that we must accelerate conservation efforts, particularly initiatives that will restore and sustain ecosystems on a larger scale, in order to prevent severe climate and biodiversity catastrophe. Indigenous peoples and local communities, owning and using roughly 50% of the land on our planet (despite having legal rights to only about 1/5th of that area) are a critical part of these solutions.

Recently, we heard from some of these grassroots conservation leaders who are championing new, innovative, and successful community-led conservation efforts across Africa. The leaders included:


The top 5 takeaways:

1. Conservation is changing, and changing fast

The face of conservation across Africa and the globe is changing. We’re seeing a new, younger generation of African leaders paving the way, and a growing number of women stepping into leadership roles. 

“A lot of these models have evolved in the past 5, 10, 15 years and are really trying to do conservation differently...all of you are young, African leaders, voices for new approaches to conservation: community-based approaches.” 
-Fred Nelson, Maliasili CEO and moderator

In Africa, local communities and grassroots organizations have been implementing conservation approaches that protect our climate, ecosystems, and wildlife, while also securing communities’ rights, livelihoods, and territories. We’re seeing the impact of these efforts today, with community-driven conservation areas now established across over 55 million acres of Namibia and Kenya alone, and the growing populations of charismatic species like the black rhino in Namibia. We’re also seeing people earn benefits from conservation, such as conservancy landowners in the Mara ecosystem receiving millions of dollars annually in lease payments.
 

2. Conservation must be inclusive

"Wildlife is central to our economy and it is also important to us as a people and to our heritage and culture.” 
-Hilma Angula, NACSO

Successful and sustainable long-term conservation efforts have to include local people. Hilma's reflections on Namibia’s journey in pioneering community conservation demonstrates this. Like many countries across the world, Namibia initially adopted the ‘fortress’ conservation approach, which saw communities forcefully removed from their homes to create protected areas for wildlife. When the government shifted their approach and granted communities the rights to own and manage their resources through the creation of communal conservancies, the change was drastic: wildlife populations increased, including the black rhino that was nearly extinct decades before, and more than 5,000 local jobs were created in connection to conservation. Communities are now earning their livelihoods from conservation, and the attitudes towards conservation have improved. 

"[Today] Conservation is inclusive and not exclusive. It's people-centered and people are at the core of the management of conservation, and this brings about fruits. Communities are benefiting from the resources.” 
-Paine Makko
 

3. Conservation needs strong local institutions

For communities to effectively manage their local natural resources, they need to build and sustain strong institutions. Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy shared  how the Locally Managed Marine Areas in Madagascar have improved the livelihoods of more than 500,000 small-scale fishers. The LMMAs face several challenges, which led to the rise of MIHARI to help address them and to give local communities a voice at the national level. MIHARI is now a strong institution advocating for small-scale fishers rights while building the capacity of LMMA leaders.
 

4. Conservation is as much about people as it is about nature

"Communities are at the center of conservation: they should be recognized, they should be valued, and they should be respected.” 
-Paine Makko

For decades, conservation has largely been focused on the protection of charismatic, large species such as elephants, rhinos and lions. Yet the custodians of the land - the people who’ve lived alongside wildlife for centuries - are often overlooked in the conservation equation. UCRT’s main focus is to secure indigenous land rights for vulnerable people who have not only been the protectors of nature but depend on it for their daily survival. UCRT’s Executive Director, Paine Makko, described how this process works - and provided an especially poignant example of helping the hunter-gatherer Hadza community secure their land while also protecting critical habitat and mitigating carbon emissions.

UCRT continues to achieve great impact for people. They have helped to secure over 1,000,000 hectares of land, ensuring crucial forest areas, wildlife corridors and habitat are protected against land encroachment. The Hadza and other local communities are also now able to earn new revenue from carbon offsets after securing, managing and protecting their lands and forests.
 

5. Conservation has to benefit the communities that champion it

Africa is rapidly modernizing, and the land available for wildlife and nature is being converted for development and other land use. In the Maasai Mara, one of Africa's most famous ecosystems, the subdivision of land has disrupted the ecosystem. MMWCA's conservancy model is unique in that where land was subdivided, it has now been pooled back into larger collective units known as conservancies, and local tour operators are making lease payments to use the land. 

All of this is coordinated through a group of stakeholders, including MMWCA, a grassroots association in the Mara. MMWCA’s CEO, Daniel Sopia, spoke about the benefits of keeping the ecosystem intact and connected, and the opportunities that exist with this unique model. 

Today, 15,711 land owners and 362 rangers receive millions annually in lease payments and salaries respectively. An additional 2,000 people from the communities are directly employed thanks to this conservation model. There has also been enhanced support for conservation due to direct benefits from tourism revenue.

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