December 2004

Multimedia Village Initiative Helps Conserve Chimpanzees

It’s African tradition that village meetings carry great importance—which is one reason why a conservation initiative incorporating theater, film and a cartoon newsletter within village gatherings in Côte d'Ivoire is yielding early results. This project by the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation aims to help conserve viable populations of West African chimpanzees.

November 2004

Marketing Social Change

Zhang Zhe is a 27-year-old environmental engineer by training. She is accomplished and intelligent. But she has an alter ego—a large golden pheasant (a friend in a big bird costume, actually) that accompanies her as she spreads her conservation messages to hundreds of school children in China’s Sichuan Province every month. And she’s not the only one.

October 2004

Small Grants - Big Community Ripples

What can you do with $100? For civil society groups receiving support from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund’s diverse small grants programs, this small sum could be the lever for saving one of the world’s most threatened primates, preserving threatened forest or enabling hundreds of people to invigorate their local economies or train for new occupations.

September 2004

Sharing, Cooperation and Scaling Up in China

Building the fledgling civil society in the Mountains of Southwest China biodiversity hotspot is no small task. Many of the nongovernmental organizations, community groups and other civil society bodies that do exist operate on annual budgets of less than $1,200-$6,000 and have little, if any, contact with other groups. Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund support is making a difference.

August 2004

Cutting a New Path for Illegal Loggers in Sumatra

The 5,000 villagers of Tangkahan are now official caretakers of a corner of Gunung Leuser National Park in northern Sumatra. As part of this new role, they are embarking in a transformation of their own livelihoods and the local economy. It's one that is turning illegal loggers into conservationists while helping build the park into one of the region's premier ecotourism destinations.

July 2004

C.A.P.E. Partners' Conference

More than 260 people recently gathered at the base of South Africa’s world-famous Table Mountain for the Cape Action for People and the Environment (C.A.P.E.) first partners’ conference. Participants reviewed progress, shared lessons learned and jointly planned for the next five years, developing a set of 13 recommendations for future action as part of this unique partnership approach.

June 2004

Environmentally Friendly Coffee Reaps Benefits for Mesoamerican Communities

Coffee production is a major source of income for countless agricultural workers in Costa Rica. As part of a carefully choreographed collaboration of coffee farmers, cooperative agro-associations, coffee retailers and conservation organizations such as Centro Científico Tropical, it is also beginning to make a critical contribution to conservation.

May 2004

Mining Company Commitment Helps Bushmanland Initiative

The Botanical Society of South Africa's Bushmanland Conservation Initiative is getting a head start on creating a 60,000-hectare protected area in the Succulent Karoo biodiversity hotspot following a commitment in April by a local mining company for both in-kind donations and future collaboration on conservation.

April 2004

Expanding Ecotourism Opportunities for the Naso People of Northern Panama

Fifteen years ago the Panamanian army often dropped soldiers into the middle of the thick tropical forest with only a canteen and a knife to test the survival capabilities of its recruits. Today’s visitors to the forest have a very different experience as honored guests of the indigenous Naso (Teribe) people.

March 2004

Tracking Elephant Killings

The Long-term System for Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) project is charged with setting up on-the-ground monitoring of elephant populations in Africa and Asia. It’s also providing the first intergovernmental system of elephant data collection of its kind. Ultimately the assessments taking place though MIKE will act as benchmarks for entire African ecosystems.

February 2004

Peregrine Fund, Communities Stabilize Madagascar Fish Eagle Population

Despite damaging encroachment on its fish diet and forest habitat, the Madagascar fish eagle is making a tentative comeback thanks to the guardianship of local fishing communities as part of a project by The Peregrine Fund. Recent surveys have identified 18 male and nine female Madagascar fish eagle and now also seven fledglings.

January 2004

Connecting Conservationists In Africa

Information is key to effective conservation: collecting it, making sense of it and doing something with it. Two former Reuters news service correspondents, a chartered accountant and others have teamed together to develop a news service about Africa that will work in all three of these areas in the first dedicated service of its kind. And now you can help.