The BirdLife International Partnership:

Conserving biodiversity, improving livelihoods

The BirdLife Partnership, People and Poverty...

“Biodiversity and development are so intrinsically interrelated that it makes no sense to suppose that progress can be achieved separately. We can only achieve the Millennium Development Goals when we also take care of our environment”

Valli Moosa, IUCN President and former Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Republic of South Africa

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The BirdLife Partnership is a global network of over 100 autonomous national NGOs working at the grassroots to conserve birds, biodiversity and the wider environment, and to sustain vital ecological systems that underpin the livelihoods and well-being of local people.

Partners are active in some of the poorest countries of the world, where the day-to-day challenges of poverty and marginalisation are faced constantly1. In all these countries, conservation must operate within a socio-political climate where poverty reduction and meeting basic needs are high on the list of priorities for local people and governments.

BirdLife works alongside local people, helping to integrate conservation with social development and livelihood security for the benefit of people and biodiversity.

This publication uses BirdLife Partner project case studies from around the world to show that biodiversity conservation can positively contribute to environmental and social protection.

BirdLife works in over 100 countries worldwide, has over 10,000,000 supporters, approximately 2,500,000 members, and annually involves over 2 million children in its activities.

BirdLife International, a Partnership that links conservation to livelihoods for the mutual benefit

of people, birds and the environment

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1 BirdLife has partner organisations and works in over 50 countries on the OECD DAC (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – Development Co-operation Directorate) list of aid recipients including many Least Developed, and Land-Locked Developing, Countries, and Small Island Developing States. For a full list of countries in the BirdLife Partnership, visit: www.birdlife.org

2 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment - a United Nations commissioned scientific study involving over 1300 experts from 95 countries, assessing the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being. (http://www.maweb.org)

3 MDG7 ‘ensuring environmental sustainability’ is seen as fundamental to meeting all other MDGs (Millennium Project Task Force – http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/EnvironSust_summary.pdf )

BirdLife believes that eliminating poverty and conserving biodiversity are pressing and interlinked global challenges, and that both should be regarded as moral imperatives.

Poverty and biodiversity are intimately linked:[The poor, especially in rural areas, depend on

biodiversity for food, fuel, shelter, medicines and many other elements of their livelihoods.

[Biodiversity provides the critical ‘ecosystem services’ on which development depends, including air and water purification, soil conservation, disease control, and reduced vulnerability to natural disasters such as floods, droughts, storms and landslides.

[Biodiversity and healthy ecosystem services increase resilience to economic shocks and environmental change, including impacts of climate change.

[Many ‘hotspots’ for biodiversity - including Important Bird Areas – are found in the poorest countries of the world.

[Conservation that excludes people can lead to increased poverty, resentment and conflict, whilst working with people can build social capital, improve democracy and reduce poverty.

The BirdLife Partnership works as part of an active and informed civil society to improve governance, shape policy and hold governments to account. BirdLife’s global network means it can influence key stakeholders at all levels from the local to the global, and both in the North and South. Through this, BirdLife works towards a future where all governments meet their international environmental commitments, where poverty is eradicated, and where biodiversity loss is halted.

Box 1 The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment2 stresses that biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides are essential to all people’s lives, particularly the poorest. They are the basis for sustainable development and reducing poverty, but 60% of these services are currently degraded and under threat. The poorest people – who have few alternatives – suffer most when such ‘free’ services are lost. Despite this, the international community is failing to meet its commitments to address this, including Millennium Development Goal 7, Ensuring Environmental Sustainability3.

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Local people harvesting “petai”, a seasonal rainforest bean. It is used in cooking, eaten raw and has a good local market value (Sumatra, Indonesia)

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Empowering people and action at the grassroots...

All BirdLife’s work aims to benefit birds, biodiversity and people. Working with and empowering local people at a grassroots level brings an inherent understanding of local issues and needs. This is combined with BirdLife’s science and policy expertise to engender appropriate community, country, and wider network support to challenge and address unsustainable practices.

Important Bird Areas (IBAs– see Box 2, page 6) are a key focus of BirdLife Partners’ work, and represent a discrete network of places that support globally recognised biodiversity and ecosystem services. Generations of adjacent communities have often used and managed these areas sustainably, protecting natural resources and sacred sites. But pressures such as industrialisation, poverty, population increase, HIV/AIDS, inward migration, and climate change have in many cases contributed to the disruption of sustainable local practices impacting negatively on both people and biodiversity.

If people’s needs are understood first hand, sustainable livelihoods linked to well-managed (and often innovative) natural resource use can be developed. Within the BirdLife network, ‘IBA Local Conservation Groups’ (IBA-LCG) are active at the local level, and are the focus of economic, political, scientific and other technical support for sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. These communities are the ‘grassroots’ in BirdLife’s governance structure.

People in IBA-LCGs decide what support they need and the BirdLife Partnership helps them find it, for example funding, training, institutional capacity development, networking, registration of organisations – making them legal, and helping to ensure that authorities listen to their concerns.

These IBA-LCGs often form effective community-based organisations (CBOs), addressing many other issues of concern to the communities they are part of, often linked to poverty and inequality. Many have gone on to use their skills and experience to tackle concerns such as health and basic service provision (water and education), often combined with strong environmental messages; others have established local income-generating activities like bee-keeping, aloe vera and coffee growing, butterfly farming and ecotourism enterprises. Specific examples and their benefits are shown in the case studies that follow.

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Local Site Support Groups (IBA-LCGs) from all over Kenya meet to share learning,

experience and ideas with each other and Nature Kenya, the BirdLife Partner

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Understanding poverty...

Poverty is both complex and multidimensional4, but in general, it represents people’s inability to achieve acceptable standards of well-being. Well-being includes economic capabilities (the ability to earn an income, access to land and resources, decent work), human capabilities (health, education, nutrition), political capabilities (empowerment, rights, voice), socio-cultural capabilities (status, dignity) and protective capabilities (to address security, risk and vulnerability)5.

Our experience shows that poverty in the communities where BirdLife works manifests itself in many ways, and can vary over time6. As a result, local people are best placed to define their circumstances and to find appropriate ways to tackle their poverty and environment-related challenges. BirdLife brings support where necessary to help meet local needs, to help fill skills or knowledge gaps, and to help understand new challenges such as climate change.

The examples in this publication show how the local constituency within BirdLife has helped empower their local communities to engage in natural resource

management decision-making (e.g. Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, Kenya); create opportunities for employment and cash incomes (Zululand, South Africa); challenge gender discrimination (Zapotillo and Lancones, Ecuador and Peru respectively); and support people who lack rights to critical assets such as land or water, to secure them (Echuya, Uganda). Crucial to the success of many of these initiatives has been strong local institutions empowered to stand up for the interests of their community.

Generating opportunities for people to bring about change – be it locally through holding district government to account or through nationally lobbying for better implementation of global environmental governance – lies at the heart of BirdLife’s approach to poverty reduction. It aims to recognise the intricate interdependence of people on nature, and nature on people, and to secure long term benefits for all human society and biodiversity.

4 Many different frameworks have been used to define poverty, including by the World Bank [World Bank, 2000/1], the UK Department for International Development [1999] and the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD-DAC, 2001].

5 OECD–DAC. 2001. The OECD/DAC guidelines on poverty reduction. Available at: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/47/14/2672735.pdf6 BirdLife International (2006) Livelihoods and the environment at Important Bird Areas: listening to local voices. Cambridge, UK: BirdLife International

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Poverty prevents many children from going to school and means many families are dependent on

disappearing forest resources for fuel, light and cooking

“Without the opportunity to represent their interests within society or to government, people have little prospect of improving their rights. Without official recognition of their existence, little or no provision will be made for their education or health care, their land rights or social protection. Even if services are available, they may not be able to access or afford to use them”.

Paul Matiku, CEO of Nature Kenya (BirdLife in Kenya).

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Case studies BirdLife’s work is delivering numerous significant livelihood benefits to people, increasing their assets and enabling them to diversify their livelihood strategies in sustainable ways, ultimately contributing to poverty reduction. To capture this, DAC Poverty and Well-being Dimensions have been used to show the multiple contributions of each case study to livelihood improvement and poverty reduction (see the key below).

KEY – Illustrating how the BirdLife Partnership’s work is addressing various dimensions of poverty and well-being based on the five DAC Poverty and Well-being Dimensions.

Economic capabilities (consumption, income and assets)

Human capabilities (health, education and nutrition)

Social-cultural capabilities (status and dignity)

Political capabilities (rights, influence and freedom)

Protective capabilities (security and vulnerability)

Case studies presented here show examples of an ever growing portfolio of BirdLife’s sustainable development and conservation work. All site-based action described focuses around Important Birds Areas (IBAs). For more information on the birds and biodiversity found at these sites please visit www.birdlife.org.

Box 2: BirdLife and Important Bird AreasSince the mid-1980’s the Partnership has collaborated to create national directories of ‘Important Bird Areas’ (IBAs); sites that are identified in-country, but that are globally important for the birds and biodiversity. We believe about 15,000 sites will be identified worldwide. They are diverse, from forests to wetlands, desert oases to coral atolls, and form part of a mosaic of biodiversity impacted by people, either directly, or indirectly – through processes like climate change. BirdLife strives to ensure that IBAs are valued and conserved as local, national or global assets for present and future generations.

The Partnership is committed to IBAs, and the case studies provide some examples of how we can integrate biodiversity conservation with people’s livelihoods. Our experience shows that birds can play a role in wider environment and development efforts, including as indicators of environmental change. Birds resonate through human societies and have widespread cultural significance. Their migrations are a source of fascination, closely linked to our own sense of vulnerability and dependence on natural systems.

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Wetland IBA in Mali, part of the Central Niger Delta – wetlands provide critical ecosystem services and are amongst

the world’s most productive environments, supporting countless local livelihoods and economies. In many parts

of the world, wetland ecosystems are severely threatened, affecting local people and biodiversity most directly

2 Improved livelihoods through better natural resources management by and for local stakeholders at Arabuko Sokoke Forest in Kenya

1 Creating income earning opportunities through avitourism in South Africa

4 Promoting organic cacao production for improved livelihoods in south Bahia in Brazil

3 Enhancing the Livelihoods of Local Communities dependent on Echuya Forest Reserve in South Western Uganda

5 Empowering women through financial and social independence and access to education in Sourou Valley in Burkina Faso

6 Decentralised decision-making, people’s rights and sustainable forest management, Ecuador and Peru

7 Reducing vulnerability of refugee pastoralists (the Azazme) through sustainable management of natural resources and protected areas in Jordan

8 Improved livelihoods and dietary security through empowerment of Sumbanese villagers in Indonesia

9 Reducing vulnerability through ecosystem improvements in Boeung Prek Lapouv, Cambodia

Map of the world showing countries where case studies presented in this publication are found

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Creating income earning opportunities through avitourism in South Africa

Zululand is one of a number of the areas with great avitourism7 potential in South Africa. However, the development of avitourism in the region was hampered by lack of general overall tourism knowledge amongst local people and lack of support and resources for marketing, managing, fundraising, and developing relationships with key stakeholders. Compounding this, about 70 important bird sites in the area were identified as under serious threat, which would impact opportunities and benefits.

In 2002, the “Zululand Birding Route”8 received funding to train guides in regional, national and international marketing and develop a formal support structure for avitourism. Over 40 guides have been successfully trained to date. Innovative

investment has been beneficial as well – Dlinza Forest in Eshowe, which formerly saw a maximum of 20 birders per week, saw visitor numbers increase to around 250 after construction of a boardwalk through the forest canopy.

Local guides earn between USD$5,000 and US$10,000 (ZAR36,000 and ZAR72,000) per annum. Since most guides come from areas where an average income of less than US$845 (ZAR6,000) per annum must support a family of six or more and where unemployment rates are 40%, the US$42 (ZAR300) that birders pay per day to hire a guide can make a very positive impact on some of the poorest South Africans’ lives9.

Other jobs have been created including full-time employment at tourist lodges and in some newly established tour operating companies, which in turn will need more local guides. Several other tourism services have benefited too. Nyoni Crafters, for example, have had a substantial increase in sales; other communities have established canoe tour operations and, because of visitor numbers, community based accommodation facilities have increased.

7 Avitourism or ‘birding’ is tourism for which the prime objective is to view and watch birds. 8 The Zululand Birding Route is a project of BirdLife South Africa (SA), focused on conserving our birds and their habitats by promoting and

developing birding tourism in the region. The Zululand Birding Route is currently managed under the BirdLife SA Rio Tinto Avitourism programme which is helping conserve birds in Zululand by giving them direct financial value.

9 Stacey, J and Duncan, P. 2007. “BirdLife South Africa is growing routes” World Birdwatch. March, Volume 21 No.1.

2Improved livelihoods through better natural resources management by and for local stakeholders at Arabuko Sokoke Forest in Kenya

Arabuko-Sokoke Forest (ASF) lies close to the Indian Ocean near Malindi, Kenya, surrounded by 53 villages and at least 110,000 people. Arabuko-Sokoke is remarkable for its biodiversity and is critical for many people’s livelihoods. Although a forest reserve, it has suffered considerably from unsustainable use and illegal activities, such as poaching and illegal logging.

Through projects funded by a number of donors and coordinated by BirdLife International and Nature Kenya (BirdLife in Kenya), considerable gains for conservation and the local economy have been made over the last twenty years. This has improved governance through pioneering Participatory Forest Management action, the formation of an Arabuko Sokoke Forest Management Team (comprised of various Government departments and Nature Kenya supporting local community representation), the establishment of an active Arabuko Sokoke Forest Adjacent Dwellers Association, and the agreement (in

2002) of a 25-year Strategic Management Plan.

Arabuko-Sokoke provides a good example of the diversity of opportunities that exist for linking sustainable resource management to people’s livelihoods, and how institutions in support of this can become catalysts for a range of social protection measures.

Working with local people, a wide array of successful income-generating activities have been established. These include butterfly farming, bee keeping, mushroom farming, aloe farming, ecotourism and farm forestry. Benefits from the award-winning community-based butterfly farming initiative – the Kipepeo Project – are noteworthy. Cumulative community earnings from the sale of butterfly pupae from 1994 to 2005 exceeded US$750,000 with significant positive effects on both livelihoods and attitudes towards Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. Of interest as well, the highest earning individual was a disabled farmer. Ecotourism and environmental education have been enhanced through the vibrant ASF Guides Association and a unique Schools and Ecotourism Scheme10. Honey has been particularly successful and production still cannot keep pace with local demand! The diversity of income generating activities that local people are engaged in at Arabuko-Sokoke Forest have helped reduce local people’s vulnerability to environmental and economic shocks and trends – such as drought when honey production is low.

Significant non-financial benefits have also arisen. With the support of Nature Kenya and funding from Kindernothilfe (KNH) and NABU (BirdLife in Germany), local people living next to the forest constructed and now manage 11 kilometres of pipeline providing fresh water to their villages. A range of community based organisations around the forest are actively networking and receiving training in business

skills, production, quality control and marketing of forest-products. Forest-adjacent communities are empowered and actively engaged in forest management issues that affect them. In return, there is a greater appreciation of the value and importance of the forest which helps ensure Arabuko-Sokoke is conserved into the future.

10 This scheme is run by A Rocha Kenya, a conservation NGO

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3 Enhancing the livelihoods of local communities dependent on Echuya Forest Reserve in South Western Uganda

Echuya Central Forest Reserve in Kabale and Kisoro Districts of south-western Uganda consists of 34 km2 of closed canopy montane broad-leaved tropical forest and bamboo. The forest is the main source of firewood, timber and poles for the surrounding communities, but is suffering from over-exploitation and is rapidly becoming degraded.

Working with NatureUganda (the BirdLife Partner in country), the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB, the UK BirdLife Partner) is supporting a four-year project with funding from the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) Civil Society Challenge Fund. The main aims are to empower local people – particularly the Batwa “pygmies” – to manage forest resources sustainably; reduce demand for firewood and bamboo from the forest and provide livelihood alternatives; and increase incomes so locals can reduce their economic dependence on forest products. The project has supported 21 Collaborative Forest Management (CFM) applications from local communities to the National Forestry Authority (NFA). Five tree nurseries have been set up – managed as income-generating businesses by individuals – and over 100,000 tree seedlings and 1,000 bamboo rhizomes have been planted on farmers’ own land to provide alternatives to forest products. The project is also introducing fuel-efficient wood-burning stoves.

More than 15 community groups have been trained in a range of key skills including enterprise selection, business plan development and group dynamics. Several have started mushroom growing cooperatives with loans from the project’s microfinance credit scheme. Demonstration passion fruit growing and bee-keeping projects have been set-up, and over 220 beekeepers – including 100 Batwa – have been trained in modern beekeeping techniques. Other trial cash crops introduced include avocado and Prunus trees. With funding from the UK’s Kulika Trust, local farmers are receiving training in sustainable organic agricultural techniques, including small livestock (rabbit and chicken) production. The project is also introducing soil conservation and erosion control techniques to help preserve the fertility and increase production – and therefore income-generating potential – of farmers’ land.

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4Promoting organic cacao production for improved livelihoods in south Bahia in BrazilThe Una Biological Reserve and the Serra das Lontras mountain complex in southern Bahia of Brazil comprise the remaining Atlantic Forest areas of North-eastern Brazil. Due to the cacao crisis in the 1990s (caused by crop disease and a low international market value), the traditional system - known as cabrucas - where cacao is cultivated in the shade of native Atlantic forest trees had been abandoned or turned over to less biodiversity friendly agricultural practices, such as pasture or sun coffee. The

cabruca system, combined with important Atlantic Forest remnants in the region’s landscape, was crucial to securing primary forest cover benefits in the long term. This replacement represents a considerable loss, particularly of rainforest which is increasingly recognised as being of global as well as local importance for the ecosystem services it provides as well as the biodiversity it supports.

SAVE Brasil (BirdLife in Brazil) in partnership with the Socio-environmental Institute of Southern Bahia (IESB) and BirdLife International has been implementing the Una-Lontras Corridor Project with the financial support of the European Union (EU). The main goal of this project is to restore the cabruca system and to add value to regional cacao production by incorporating organic and biodiversity friendly systems as a

feasible alternative to less sustainable agricultural practices, whilst increasing rural communities’ incomes. Cacao producers working with the project have received technical support to improve productivity in traditional cabrucas and to adjust from conventional to organic and agro-ecological systems. Capacity building in cooperative management has been supported to consolidate cooperatives of producers and to promote community organisation. Technical support on products, marketing and commercialisation is also given to producers and cooperatives, and special attention is given to women’s groups in order to increase family income. In addition, the project works with government institutions towards the creation of public conservation units, to promote Atlantic Forest conservation and deliver real benefits and security to local people.

Empowering women through financial and social independence and access to education in Sourou Valley in Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso around 1,000 women die for every 100,000 live births. One of the major causes of this high maternal death rate is lack of income, which limits women’s access to health services and education. This is true for many women living around Lake Sourou in the province of Sourou, north-west of Burkina Faso. Here, empowering women through financial and social independence and access to education has lead to a sharp decline in maternal and child mortality.

Naturama (BirdLife in Burkina Faso) in co-operation with BirdLife International, and with funding from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS) and Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries (LNV), initiated work aimed at empowering women through improved access to income, and promoting the wise use of the Sourou Valley Wetlands on which people depend for fish and other resources.

A study carried out by Naturama revealed that for many women living around the lake, smoking and drying fish is a major income-generating activity. A micro-credit scheme has provided money to these women to improve fish–smoking techniques including buying improved stoves to reduce firewood consumption. The results have been considerable: income from fish smoking and drying has increased the number of women who can afford to attend neonatal classes from 10% to 70% – a direct contribution to Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5 on improving maternal health. Mothers can take their children to hospital if they are unwell, supporting MDG 4 reducing child mortality. Income from the project has also enabled local children to attend school, and school desks to be built – helping to meet MDG 2 achieving universal primary education. This shows how promoting gender equality and empowering women (MDG 3) along side addressing MDG7 (ensuring environmental sustainability) has many co-benefits that contribute towards poverty reduction.

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Reducing vulnerability of refugee pastoralists (the Azazme) through sustainable management of natural resources and protected areas in Jordan

The Azazme tribal group are refugee Bedouins who live on arid and marginal land and rely on the Dana Wildlands, a protected area in Jordan, for water resources, livestock grazing, fuelwood and hunting. The Azazme’s livelihood activities were affected by massive degradation of rangelands, soil erosion and almost zero tree regeneration, which was taking place in the area. Forty-five Azazme families – 550 individuals – own 6,000 goats and sheep, their only real asset and source of income. In 1996, withdrawal of subsidies for winter-feed left them heavily in debt and suffering health problems because of poor nutrition.

The plight of the Azazme people and the degradation of the Dana Wildlands prompted the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN, BirdLife in Jordan) to initiate an innovative goat-fattening scheme. Goats are reared in pens outside the protected area and are fattened with waste products from the processing of olives and tomatoes. They have been achieving increased winter weights, with considerably higher sale prices as a result. RSCN provides cash loans to pay for the feed, veterinary care and stock management, and the herders refund the loans after the animals have been sold. Through constant dialogue with the RSCN, a Dana Wildlands Management Group has been established with Azazme representation, and through this the herders have undertaken to reduce stock density over ten years to agreed sustainable levels.

Initiatives like goat-fattening and leather-making have helped to improve the local economy and the Azazmes’ living conditions, and have reduced their vulnerability to environmental and economic shocks. Local people have started to change their attitude towards the Dana Wildlands protected area, and to support its longterm conservation for their own benefit as well as for biodiversity.

6 Decentralised decision-making, people’s rights and sustainable forest management, Ecuador and Peru

Zapotillo and Lancones are among the poorest counties in Ecuador and Peru respectively. It is a remote arid region with limited natural resources, due partly to the climatic influence of the nearby Sechura desert, but where El-Niño also causes periodic torrential rain. The countries’ long-term border conflict means that the region has lacked effective development support. Local traditions often discriminate against women, confining their roles to raising children, while the men fill positions of community leadership and control their family’s use of natural resources, agricultural areas and crops.

Nature and Culture International (NCI), an NGO with offices in both Ecuador and Peru, with support from BirdLife International Secretariat, initiated the La Ceiba-Pilares project to improve the living conditions of local communities and develop sustainable natural resource management. This bi-national initiative involves 54 villages with 1,000 households and 6,000 people. At the heart of the project is a programme of institution building. Stronger institutions are better able to participate in local and District-level decision-making, and they can better manage natural resources. To date, a total of 77 interest groups have been established, forming 16 community-based organisations. More and more people are participating in these organisations and half are women.

These community based organisations are participating in discussions with key government agencies and NGOs involved in conservation and sustainable development, which means their voices are being heard in decision-making. As a result, piped water supplies have been introduced into two communities in Peru, and various government programmes (for example on child nutrition) have been introduced into this previously-neglected area.

However, it is in natural resource management where the most significant changes have been made. The communities have been engaged as partners in the sustainable management of local ‘dry’ forests, and as a result are taking an active role in land-use decisions (including the enforcement of agreed regulations and zoning). The result has been a reduction in damaging activity (such as the widespread and illegal felling and exportation of timber by non-residents) bringing benefits for both biodiversity and local people livelihoods.

9Reducing vulnerability through ecosystem improvements in Boeung Prek Lapouv, Cambodia

Boeung Prek Lapouv in Cambodia is the best remaining example of the wet grassland ecosystem that once dominated the Mekong Delta region. To the local people of Borei Chulsar and Koh Andeth Districts in Takeo Province, the site is an important dry season refuge for fish, acts as a reservoir of crop genetic resources, and serves as a natural barrier against floods. However, the area is under pressure from overexploitation of natural resources (fish, birds and plant products), jeopardising local people’s dietary and livelihood security. Fishstocks have fallen and degraded wetland areas have left local people vulnerable to seasonal flooding which regularly destroys their deep-water rice crops.

BirdLife supported the creation and development of an active and effective IBA – Local Conservation Group to help address these issues, including through raising awareness with and gaining cooperation from government officials. This group is now made up of local community members, supported by Cambodia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). MAFF

staffs are seconded to the project, which also helps build conservation capacity in the government.

The IBA-LCG has successfully tackled dwindling fish stocks and flooding problems. After realising that fine fishnets were decreasing the sustainability of the fisheries, the local support group banned their use. Despite larger mesh nets allowing more juvenile fish to escape, fishermen have seen average nightly catches increase from 2 kg to 5 kg. Degraded areas have also been regenerated - vegetation has regrown. All of these factors help to provide the local communities with a greater amount of food for consumption and sale, and to secure the long term future and viability of this ecologically important part of Mekong Delta for people and biodiversity.

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8Improved livelihoods and dietary security through empowerment of Sumbanese villagers in Indonesia

The island of Sumba has some of the lowest human development indicators in Indonesia. Income is 20-30% of the national average, just 40% of children complete elementary school, and health facilities are poor. Villages depend heavily on natural resources to survive with most trying to eke out a living from farming. However, this main livelihood activity is affected by unreliable water supplies in the area and crops and livestock are often lost to locusts or cattle raiders. When crops fail, the Sumba people traditionally fall back on wild yams collected from the forest, which are protected by traditional laws – these forest resources have helped reduce people’s vulnerability to natural climatic factors as well. However, when two national parks were declared in 1998, communities living around the forest found they were denied access to their ancestral land and forest resources.

Burung Indonesia (BirdLife in Indonesia) has been working closely with local communities and government to conserve Sumba’s forests and support local livelihoods. Working with local NGOs, Yayasan Pakta and Yayasan Tananua, an effective Important Bird Area Local Conservation Group (IBA-LCGs) known in Sumba as Kelompok Masyarakat Pelestari Hutan (KMPH) has been established. This involved helping to develop the group’s structure, it’s management and governance systems and it’s financial sustainability, as well as supporting technical capacity building within the community.

KMPH activities have focussed on improving the cultivation of perennial plants and making then more sustainable by terracing farmland, supporting women’s groups to create kitchen gardens, and cultivating trees that reduce demand on the natural forest. KMPH have also led the way in developing Village Conservation Agreements. These encompass the entire community, and are the outcome of negotiations between the community and the park’s management to meet both groups’ needs and aspirations. They cover access to resources (such as yams) inside the parks. All this has helped in reducing vulnerability to fluctuations in water supply that affect income-generating activities outside the parks – and agreements not to farm or graze in certain areas.

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Lessons learned and conclusions

BirdLife Partner’s in developing countries are broad-based conservation organisations whose members and local groups are often from poor and marginalised rural communities. As a result, there is therefore a strong motivation to link conservation with local people’s needs for poverty reduction.

The Partnership case studies discussed in this publication demonstrate that properly designed and implemented conservation interventions can contribute to poverty reduction, both directly and indirectly. Examples include expanding opportunities and income, improving the capacity of the poor to sustainably manage and use biodiversity, increasing the voice of the poor and improving governance at different levels, aswell as strengthening poor people’s ability to cope in a changing environment.

A number of lessons can be drawn:[Poverty means different things to different people in different places. Understanding how biodiversity contributes

to people’s livelihoods requires local engagement, careful attention to people’s needs, and a good evaluation of how natural resources support poor people.

[No blueprint exists for biodiversity-livelihood links. Whilst organisations can support local development and sustainable resource management through provision of technical expertise, access to networks and information relevant to a rapidly changing world, there is no substitute for local people’s knowledge and action in designing and carrying out measures that address their needs.

[Conferring sustainable access and use rights over natural resources, especially when combined with effective democratic institutions to regulate that use and access, can increase local people’s income in the long term as well as the short term.

[Innovative biodiversity conservation interventions can support natural resource-based enterprises (such as eco-tourism, beekeeping, agroforestry and butterfly farming) and help local people to exploit and expand opportunities for marketing these products.

[The success of biodiversity conservation in delivering livelihood benefits to local people depends on creating informed and empowered local citizens, supported by effective local institutions and groups. Local-level empowerment can be promoted through, for example, skills-building for individuals to sustainably manage and use biodiversity. Such skills are widely transferable.

[Empowering women and minority groups to exercise their rights, and improving their access to decision-makers, can both increase incomes and improve health and livelihood security.

[Conserving biodiversity and improving the quality and productivity of natural resources and ecosystems can help increase poor people’s resilience to economic shocks and natural disasters such as drought, many of which will be exacerbated by climate change.

Through improved rights and access to natural resources, IBA groups and other community-based organisations in

the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon are establishing tree nurseries to generate income, regenerate the forest and

improve forest biodiversity

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Policy checklist for a sustainable future

BirdLife’s experience and engagement at all levels is used to inform policy development and advocacy. It has considerable experience and expertise in many different areas and sectors, all working towards a healthy, sustainable and bio-diverse world. Headline policy messages are offered here as a checklist for a sustainable future and to encourage others to support this.

We call on governments, donors, institutions and other key stakeholders to ensure that:1) Local people are part of informed decision making processes that take their environmental needs into account and

are active players in shaping and managing the world around them.

2) Fair payments are readily available to local people to support effective conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services from which others benefit, providing a viable alternative to unsustainable land conversion or other destructive activities.

3) Developing countries are effectively supported to meet their own environmental needs and commitments, with developed country governments delivering on their promises for more and better aid, additional financial resources, technical support and fair trade. Environmental sustainability is explicitly addressed and valued as a prerequisite for sustainable growth and development.

4) Biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides are the basis for sustainable development and reducing poverty. The poorest people – who have few alternatives – suffer most when such ‘free’ services are lost. The natural environment is a public good and all governments should work to conserve it.

5) Environmental concerns are effectively mainstreamed into investment protocols and governance systems, strategic plans and budgets, as well as key sector activity (for example agriculture, health, energy, transport and education).

6) Environmental assets (including ecosystem goods and services) are identified, monitored, measured and valued, and that such information is effectively used to meet environment and development commitments, and to ensure informed decision making.

7) Dangerous climate change is averted, developing countries are supported towards a prosperous low carbon future, and local people, as well as governance systems and ecosystems, have the resilience and capacity to manage and cope with the change to which we are already committed.

Significant investment must be made to manage and protect our environment – without investment, environmental assets are rarely valued and will be lost to the detriment of the poor, wider society, and future generations. In particular, much greater support and funding is needed for the management, restoration and protection of biodiversity and ecosystem services. These provide critical resources for livelihood security, they underpin sustainable development, provide resilience to climate change, and support life on Earth.

BirdLife International is committed to working with others to achieve effective, long term biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. To find out more about the Partnership, Partners and working with us visit: www.birdlife.org

Globally, deforestation is responsible for considerable biodiversity loss and 18-20%

of greenhouse gas emissions; locally it deprives forest dependent communities

of natural resources they have used for generations.

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BirdLife International is a Partnership of people for birds and the environment. Over ten million people support the BirdLife Partnership of over 100 national

non-governmental conservation organisations and their local groups.

www.birdlife.org

Resourced by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is the UK registered charity (no. 207076) working to secure a healthy environment for birds and wildlife, helping to create a better

world for us all. The RSPB is the UK Partner of BirdLife International.

www.rspb.org.uk

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Publication supported by

BirdLife International, Wellbrook Court, Girton Road, Cambridge CB3 0NABirdLife International is a UK registered charity no. 1042125

Printed on Revive (75% recycled fibre) Designed by mich. Communications. June 2007

Publication coordinated by Abisha Mapendembe with support from the BirdLife Secretariat and RSPB, with special thanks to BirdLife Partner’s whose case studies are featured.