BirdLife At Sourou, Burkina Faso, and elsewhere, Local Groups have been trained to make fuel-saving 'ecostoves' for local use and sale, thus reducing pressure on forests Zoom In

Local Groups scoring Goals

14-09-2005

Human wellbeing and the health of the world’s ecosystems are intimately linked. As the UN meets to discuss progress on the Millennium Development Goals, Nick Langley explains why BirdLife’s work to conserve Important Bird Areas is also reducing poverty and political exclusion.

“In the past, the environment was viewed as something of a luxury,” Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of UNEP, told a gathering of the world’s environment ministers in February 2005. “The philosophy was that economies must first grow before countries clean up the land, the air and the waterways.”

Today this “one-dimensional view” is being rapidly replaced by the awareness that without a healthy and stable environment, long-lasting economic and social development and the eradication of poverty and hunger will not be possible. “This is particularly clear in developing countries, where so many people are reliant on nature for everything from food and medicines to energy and water supplies,” Mr Toepfer said.

The conservation community has in the past been guilty of its own form of tunnel vision, most shamefully exemplified in the displacement and exclusion of indigenous people from protected areas. “Past approaches to biodiversity conservation have required rural people to give up access to resources that they must, in fact, continue to use to survive,” said Dr Souleymane Zeba of Naturama (BirdLife in Burkina Faso). Dr Zeba says that in Africa — as elsewhere in the developing world — biodiversity conservation must focus on continuing and sustainable use of resources, so that present and future generations can reap tangible benefits from nature.

The growing recognition that ecosystem health and human wellbeing are inseparably related underpins the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aim to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, reduce child and maternal mortality, promote gender equality, reverse the spread of HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases, and halve the number of people without access to safe drinking water. In a report on progress towards the MDGs, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has written, “Our efforts to defeat poverty and pursue sustainable development will be in vain if environmental degradation and natural resource depletion continue unabated.”

The realisation that “conservation depends on sustainable livelihoods—and vice versa,” as David Thomas, Head of BirdLife’s Site Action Unit puts it, underpins BirdLife’s work with local communities in the developing world. This work is extensively—though not exclusively—based on IBA Local Conservation Groups, autonomous organisations of volunteers involved with the conservation of Important Bird Areas (IBAs). These take various forms in different parts of the world, appropriate to local circumstances, including Site Support Groups (SSGs) in Africa and parts of Asia, Caretakers in Europe and IBA Communities in Action groups in Canada.

BirdLife The Berga Bird Lovers are promoting sustainable farming and working with local people to increase their income, skills, awareness and the motivataion to protect their nearby wetland Zoom In

"Poverty is not just a matter of income or nutrition. In its broadest sense poverty involves lack of access to decision-makers, lack of information and lack of rights to access and manage natural resources. —David Thomas, BirdLife International

BirdLife's David Thomas says in the past, BirdLife’s work with local communities was seen as a means to a conservation end—a “tool”—but increasingly in developing countries, it is focused on the rights, livelihoods and welfare of the communities the volunteers are drawn from.

By providing some initial financial and organisational support, environmental education, and training in sustainable livelihoods like bee-keeping and agro-forestry, BirdLife works to establish a common interest in the conservation of the site and its biodiversity. Through membership of IBA Local Conservation Groups and help from BirdLife and partner NGOs and agencies, marginalised and excluded communities can find a democratic voice, and the insecure and andless can be given tenure over the land they depend on.

The Local Conservation Group approach builds local capacity that continues to function after external assistance ends. They also strengthen links within and between communities, and create new ways of working together, as BirdLife International Chairman Peter Schei has pointed out. “After the Boxing Day Tsunami, SSGs in Malaysia and Thailand were able to get rescue and reconstruction work underway quickly because they were already organised and trained.”

Where it succeeds in securing present and future access to natural resources, and providing cash-poor communities with alternatives to desperate short-term measures like selling the timber rights to their forests, or converting wetlands and grasslands to crop-growing, the IBA Local Conservation Group approach supports the Millennium Goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.

For example, the Berga Floodplain SSG in Ethiopia, formed to conserve the most important breeding site of the globally threatened White-winged Flufftail Sarothrura ayresi, has enabled landless people and others to grow vegetables for their own needs and for sale, and to gain income from work in tree nurseries. The work at Berga, which includes training in better farming practices, was originally donor-funded with support from the Ethiopian Wildlife and Natural History Society (BirdLife in Ethiopia), but the SSG is becoming self-sufficient through its revenue-generating activities.

Jaqueline Goerck/SAVEBrasil Impacts on the watershed at Serra das Lontras, Brazil, have been reduced, thanks to a Local Group of organic cacao producers Zoom In

In Boeung Prek Lapouv, Cambodia, a wetland IBA with important populations of fish-eating waterbirds, the local support group banned the use of fine-mesh nets. As more small fish escape to reach maturity, local fisherman have seen their average nightly catch increase from 2 kg to 5 kg. The group is drawn from local communes with support from Cambodia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. MAFF staff are seconded to the project, which helps build conservation capacity in the Cambodian government.

The Serra das Lontras Atlantic Forest IBA, Bahia, Brazil, is home to several endemic threatened species and at least nine globally threatened birds, including Alagoas Foliage-gleaner Philydor novaesi. The motivation of the SSG, made up of marginalised small cacao farmers, is primarily improved livelihoods and income from organic cacao production, although farmers understand the conservation purpose of the project, and the need to incorporate conservation values into their livelihoods. Impacts on the watershed at Serra das Lontras have been reduced, contributing to the Millennium Goal of providing safe water supplies. SAVEBrasil (BirdLife in Brazil), working with other local NGOs, has provided staff, funding and training in organic cacao cultivation. “We’ve found that it’s best to work with existing local organisations and co-operatives,” says SAVEBrasil’s Jaqueline Goerck. “It’s important to incorporate and give value to local knowledge.”

Throughout the developing world, many Local Conservation Groups have become involved in ecotourism projects, set up with the participation of local communities so that the revenues raised remain in the area. The SSG in Oviedo Municipality, where some of the Dominican Republic’s poorest people live, promotes ecotourism at the Oviedo Dry Forest, which has created work for local people and also attracted government investment in infrastructure such as road links, water and sanitation. The project was set up by the local NGO Grupo Jaragua. At Al Shouf Cedars Reserve in Lebanon, local people offer bed-and-breakfast accommodation to visitors, providing income which is helping to stem migration out of the area, and giving the community a strong interest in the conservation of their natural heritage. The Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (BirdLife in Lebanon) took care to focus its support on households in most need.

The Local Conservation Group approach is also contributing to the Millennium Goal of universal primary education. At some sites, like the Berga Floodplain, donor funding or local income generation has enabled schools to be built. Income from SSG activities can enable children from remote areas to go to school for the first time. At Gezaulole near the Dar es Salaam coast IBA, Tanzania, a site of major importance for migratory waders from northern Eurasia, the SSG has set up a women’s group who take turns providing lunches to tourists. “We found they only had to provide one fish-and-rice meal per month to pay a child’s bus fares to school,” said Elias Mungaya of the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania (BirdLife in Tanzania).

SSG activities which improve local access to wood and water contribute to the goals of empowerment and equality of women and the education of girls. “In developing countries it is women and girls who often bear the burden of finding water and fuel for their families,” Klaus Toepfer explained. “Cleaner and more plentiful supplies of water and sustainable forms of energy cannot but boost the chances of girls achieving a regular attendance at school. So even here, the environment has some part to play, as it does in areas of child mortality, maternal health and reversing the spread of disease.”

The Peninsula Action Group on the Environment (PAGE) is an SSG including members of ten communities adjacent to the Western Area Peninsular Forest (WAPF). The only remaining patch of tropical rainforest in western Sierra Leone, WAPF is home to the White-necked Picathartes Picathartes gymnocephalus and four other globally threatened birds. PAGE is now registered as a legal entity with the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s affairs, and has a Memorandum of Understanding which formalises its collaboration with the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone (BirdLife in Sierra Leone). Woodlots are being planted with fastgrowing Acacia to provide fuel, and here as in some other SSGs, a number of people have been trained to make fuel-saving “ecostoves”, for local use and sale in Freetown and the surrounding area. This raises income, and reduces pressure on the forest.

When women have financial and social independence and access to education, maternal and child mortality falls. At the Lake Sourou IBA, which holds possibly the largest concentration of waterbirds in Burkina Faso, the income from a project to improve fish-smoking techniques has increased the number of woman who can afford to attend neonatal classes from 10 to 70%. Burkina Faso has around 1,000 maternal deaths per 100,000. This project is just one of a number of sustainable livelihood initiatives at the site, co-ordinated by Naturama in co-operation with government and other agencies.

"Prior to the introduction of modern scientific management strategies, local communities are known to have instituted effective by-laws covering fishing in ponds and lakes, management of water catchment areas and harvesting of wild palm fruits and bush yams." —Dr Souleymane Zeba, Naturama (BirdLife in Burkina Faso)

Many African and Asian SSGs build on traditional systems of managing natural resources. “Prior to the introduction of modern scientific management strategies, local communities are known to have instituted effective by-laws covering fishing in ponds and lakes, management of water catchment areas and harvesting of wild palm fruits and bush yams,” says Dr Zeba. However, these traditions may be under threat because of the lack of secure land tenure or democratic representation. David Thomas says helping communities organise so they are empowered to make themselves heard by those in authority, providing them with information and improving their rights, are important contributors to the alleviation of poverty.

BirdLife is working through SSGs with forest-dependent communities in Africa andIndonesia to secure their rights to use natural resources, and protect their land from encroachment and exploitation by people with no stake in the future of the forest. In Sierra Leone, PAGE has the right to take legal action when forest-related laws are broken, and can secure funding directly from any potential funding agency.

Thee Bagyeli and Bakola communities who live in Cameroon’s Ngovayang Massif Forest, an IBA with 156 of Cameroon’s 215 Guinea-Congo forest biome bird species, are marginalised groups of hunter-gatherers.The Cameroon Biodiversity Conservation Society (CBCS; BirdLife in Cameroon) organised workshops to explain forest law and land tenure systems, and the importance of meeting citizenship requirements to participate in decision making and ensure that their rights and interests are taken into account. Around 110 members of the Bagyeli and Bakola communities now have national identity cards.

In the Indonesian island of Sumba, BirdLife Indonesia has helped set up village based Community Forest Protection Groups, which manage the harvesting of forest products sustainably, and develop other farming activities to take the pressure off the forest. CFPGs also monitor and prevent illegal logging. The communities are now recognised as legal owners of their land, and consulted by the government in matters relating to natural resource management.

By providing communities with sustainable livelihoods and a democratic voice, BirdLife’s Local Conservation Group approach empowers them to work towards the Millennium Development Goals on their own behalf, and with their own resources.

BirdLife Chairman Peter Schei warns there are sometimes trade-offs between development and conservation. Where development loses out, local people should be compensated for opportunity loss. “It’s not all win-win. But the problems of nature management often stem from the lack of involvement of local people.”