Fostering Community Conservation Conference Report

The Community Conservation Resilience Initiative (CCRI) aims to provide community-determined, bottom-up policy advice on effective and appropriate forms of support for community-driven conservation and restoration initiatives, including indigenous peoples’ and community conserved territories and areas (ICCAs), as a contribution to the implementation of the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan and Aichi Targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Over at least the next four years and in at least 20 countries, more than 60 communities and supporting organisations will conduct bottom-up participatory assessments of the resilience of their conservation initiatives and determine forms of legal, political, technical, moral and financial support that should be provided to sustain and strengthen them. It is expected to have a significant multiplier effect by encouraging an enabling environment for effective and appropriate support for community conservation initiatives.

In 2014 and 2015, over 30 communities have undertaken community conservation resilience assessments in Ethiopia, Uganda, South Africa, Iran, Russia, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Panama, Paraguay and Chile in collaboration with local and national civil society and indigenous peoples’ organisations. The preliminary results of these assessments were presented and discussed at the “Fostering Community Conservation Conference”, which took place from 31 August to 4 September 2015 in Durban, South Africa. This ambitious international event – organised by the Global Forest Coalition (GFC) in collaboration with the Siemenpuu Foundation and Natural Justice – welcomed more than 100 participants from almost 40 different countries, including at least 50 representatives of indigenous peoples and local communities. The objective of the conference was to contribute to a global dialogue between a diverse group of rights-holders and others on how to strengthen the resilience of community conservation initiatives in light of local and global threats.

See the Fostering Community Conservation Conference report here.

15 Nov, 2015
Posted in Resources and publications, Supporting Community Conservation