community involvement Archives - Page 4 of 14

SWM Sustainable Wildlife Management Programme – Executive Summary: Progress and impact 2018-2024

This document serves as the SWM Programme phase I implementation report. The SWM Programme has sought to balance and strengthen wildlife conservation with the well-being of rural communities through an approach emphasizing the rights of local communities. This summary highlights the programme’s progress from 2018 to 2024.

Incorporating a landcare approach into community land management efforts in Africa: a case study of the Mount Kenya region

This report reviews the aspect of community based natural resource management approaches, the adoption of environmental conservation (soil and water conservation) technologies and extent and use of farmer innovations within the mount kenya regions. The report is based on a case study carried out within mount kenya region comprising four districts, namely Embu and Meru South in eastern province, nyeri in central province and laikipia in the rift valley of kenya. the study was carried out in the months of july, august and september 2002. This study presents the current status of natural resource management in the region, it explores the various actors in environmental conservation with particular emphasis on soil and water conservation, afforestation and general land care. Further, it examines community prioritization of constraints in environmental conservation and describes remedial efforts made especially through group activities

Evaluating socioeconomic and equity outcomes in livelihood interventions: Insights from Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in northern Ghana

Over the past 25 years, Ghana’s Community Resource Management Area (CREMA) program has expanded to cover 2 million hectares across 600 communities, aiming to achieve its dual objectives of biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction. As Ghana’s flagship Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) initiative, it has attracted significant investment from international organizations for livelihood interventions to reduce poverty and incentivize conservation. Yet little is known about how these interventions are implemented or who benefits. Using qualitative methods, this study examines stakeholders’ perceptions of the types, socioeconomic impacts, and equity dynamics of livelihood interventions in three CREMAs in northern Ghana. Our findings reveal that interventions that enhance existing livelihoods, such as modern beekeeping, remain the most frequently implemented. Although the socioeconomic impacts of these interventions vary across and within CREMAs, they provide individuals with modest, seasonal income and support community development projects. The gender dimensions of the interventions show that gender-targeted, pro-poor distribution norms have increased women’s inclusion and access to cash income but also raise concerns about exclusion and intersectional inequities. By situating our findings within debates on distributional and contextual equity, we offer insights into how pro-poor norms interact with gender and other contextual factors to shape economic and equity outcomes in incentive-based conservation. This article is relevant beyond the case study, as it can inform the design of equitable, context-sensitive, and sustainable livelihood interventions in current and future incentive-based conservation efforts across the tropics and beyond.

Diagnosing scaling bottlenecks in 10 community conservation initiatives in southern and eastern Africa

Scaling area-based conservation, including initiatives led or comanaged by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, is a flagship goal of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Conservationists often aspire to scale initiatives, but this is rarely achieved in practice. Identifying and addressing factors that limit initiative adoption (i.e., bottlenecks) could improve scaling strategies. We used insightsfrom 84 expert surveys to identify potential risk factors and bottlenecks to scaling 10 community, area-based initiatives in southern and eastern Africa. The number of reported potential risk factors and bottlenecks varied among initiatives. However, unfair benefit sharing, unequal decision-making, inflexible rules, and top-down leadership were frequently identified as bottlenecks. Although adopting initiatives had costs (e.g., increased local conflicts, reduced local access to natural resources and cropland), most experts believed these costs were offset by other benefits and thus did not constitute bottlenecks. Our results did not capture local perspectives, but they suggest scaling strategies that strengthen environmental governance may support more socially just and durable approaches to meeting area-based conservation goals.

Forest and landscapes Restoration: Voices from the Communities

This collection of farmer stories explores how women, men, and youth in Makueni and Taita Taveta Counties are engaging in forest and landscape restoration whose outcomes were supported by the Delivering nature-based solution outcomes by addressing policy, institutional and monitoring gaps in forest and landscape restoration project which was funded by UK PACT (Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions) and implemented by CIFOR-ICRAF in partnership with the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations-Kenya (FAO), and implemented in Makueni and Taita Taveta Counties. The project addressed key policy, institutional, and monitoring gaps in restoration while promoting gender-transformative and socially inclusive approaches. By strengthening community forest associations (CFAs), building local capacity, and supporting evidence-based decision-making, it contributed to more resilient landscapes, improved livelihoods, and Kenya’s climate and restoration commitments.

The stories highlight personal experiences, drawing from project activities such as community dialogues about how gender roles shape access to resources, decision making, and participation in restoration, as well as trainings and household “vision journey” exercises. These approaches have helped break down barriers, strengthen mutual understanding, and promote more inclusive and equitable participation in restoration. The stories show how training and inclusive practices are influencing household dynamics, encouraging women and men to make decisions as partners, strengthening community forest associations, and shaping local livelihoods, offering insight into the practical and social changes that support more equitable and sustainable land management.

Roadway seizures reveal widespread illegal wild meat use and faunal downsizing in Brazil

Illegal and unsustainable wild meat use is simplifying vertebrate assemblages across the Neotropics, yet robust information on offtake magnitude and use patterns remains scarce. We used nationwide road-seizure records from Brazil’s Federal Highway Police (Polícia Rodoviária Federal; PRF) from 2017 to 2024, focusing on hunted animals and wild meat intercepted during transport, to quantify the scale and composition of illegal offtake. We then tested whether these enforcement records reproduce expected ecological signals of illegal hunting by examining whether seizure yield and taxonomic composition track state-level defaunation. Across 314 independent events, PRF intercepted ∼9,479 individual animals, totalling ∼9.3 t of biomass, revealing substantial and taxonomically structured pressure on wildlife. The Amazon and Caatinga biomes accounted for the largest shares of events and individuals, respectively. Seized birds dominated numerically in Caatinga, whereas mammals supplied most biomass overall, with reptiles contributing disproportionately in the Amazon and Cerrado–Pantanal biomes. Generalized linear models showed that with increasing defaunation, events involved more individuals but less biomass per seizure, and the mean body mass of seized vertebrates declined. In addition, the proportion of mammals decreased while birds became more prevalent. This convergence with known depletion patterns indicates that road-seizure data can serve as a cost-effective barometer of illegal wild-meat use and its defaunation-linked “downsizing” effect. Targeted responses should pair highway and riverine enforcement, standardize inter-agency reporting (species, counts, biomass, geolocation, product form), and combine access control with community partnerships, livelihood alternatives, and health-risk communication to reduce demand and long-term ecological and public-health impacts.

Fostering care and agency for wildlife stewardship on Indigenous and local lands: the power of place, practice, and virtue

Stewardship of wildlife within lands managed by Indigenous peoples and local communities has relied on traditional knowledge and skills yet faces challenges amid social and economic changes that can weaken enduring social-ecological relations. Wildlife conservation initiatives frequently lean on community-based wildlife management (CBWM) to foster sustainable use while ensuring community involvement in decision making. In practice, CBWM has often remained tightly linked to top-down or externally driven processes with quick negative conclusions being drawn about the capacity of communities to manage local wildlife, without further investigating the foundational conditions of stewardship. This study proposes a theoretical model for place-based stewardship that builds on the care-knowledge-agency framework, grounding it in mentored practices and environmental virtue. Our model does not discount the importance of devolved governance systems and legitimate leadership but highlights the parallel requirement for virtuous local decision-making processes, which emerge from mentored practice, rooted in place-based knowledge, and nurtured by care. We illustrate this model with case studies from Guyana and the Democratic Republic of Congo, drawing on lessons learned to develop a generic theory of change that can be adapted to guide the development of tailored interventions for the consolidation of stewardship in the context of CBWM. We argue that CBWM initiatives involving Indigenous peoples and local communities cannot view wildlife management as disconnected from strategies for self-determination within a context of reappropriation of customary lands and may require enabling actions to recover agency and place-based care through reconnection to the territory and mentored practice.

Novel approaches for engaging Indigenous Peoples and local communities on wildlife and food security. Innovation case study

The SWM Programme is working to improve rural governance systems, so that communities are in a better position to sustainably manage their natural resources and improve their well-being. Making this happen isn’t simple. It requires accountable and transparent systems that empower communities to govern their territories effectively. It’s about building real partnerships based on trust and mutual respect. It means listening to the needs and ideas of the people who call these places home and working together to find solutions that benefit everyone. It’s about recognizing that communities are the true stewards of their lands and resources and supporting them in their efforts to protect and sustainably manage these vital natural assets. Community engagement is a two-way process of exchange and dialogue between project staff and all segments of the communities, which involves a wide spectrum of established approaches and good practices.

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