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The monthly newsletter of the Poverty and Conservation Learning Group (PCLG)
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PCLG Secretariat & National Group news
Uganda PCLG recently organised three radio talk shows to discuss poverty and conservation issues in Uganda running on Kfm 93.3 on 17th, 18th and 22nd December. The panellists include members of U-PCLG namely Dr. Panta Kasoma, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Dr. Arthur Mugisha, and Dr. Robert Bitahiro as well as Mr. George Owoyesigire – Senior Wildlife Officer from the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities and Mr. Asa Kule Musinguzi – Community Conservation Coordinator from Uganda Wildlife Authority. Recordings of these talk shows will be available on the PCLG website shortly.
PCLG Cameroon has hosted an i-learn workshop to present and validate the results of a comparative field study which aims to evaluate the impact of the agro-industry and logging industry on great apes conservation and poverty issues in Cameroon. The meeting report and the study will be available shortly on the PCLG website.
We have launched three new country specific bibliographic databases, which contain peer reviewed and grey literature on conservation-poverty linkages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon and Uganda. These databases can be searched for publications by key word, by theme, by publication type or by great ape species. Please send us suggestions for publications that should be included in these databases.
We have also been finalising our plans to hold a scoping meeting in Rwanda early next year to explore the interest and need for setting up a national PCLG Rwanda group. Please contact Alessandra Giuliani if you are in Rwanda and would like to be involved.
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Member news
The African Wildlife Foundation has written an article on diversification to reduce forest dependence in DRC for PCLG Spotlight.
The Capacity for Conservation Collaboration has launched Capacityforconservation.org - a free online resource to help organisations develop their own capacities and make knowledge-sharing between organisations easier. If you have any questions, please email. You can also join their new Linkedin group
CIFOR’s COBAM project has announced five pilot projects with the aim of generating understanding on the synergy between adaptation and mitigation at the community level.
Conservation Through Public Health’s Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka and Blue Ventures' Caroline Savitzky have recently attended a seminar in Washington on scaling up and expanding conservation and health efforts in Uganda and Madagascar. Read more or watch the seminar.
The Green Planet International Initiative has recently attended the first stakeholders’ meeting in Nigeria of the Community Based REDD+ Process to showcase a set of complementary community-based efforts to protect and conserve forests.
IIED has created a new webpage, legal tools for citizen empowerment, to document lessons and share tools and tactics amongst practitioners.
Norwegian University of Life Sciences and partners have published 'The Implementation and Sustainability of Village Conservation Agreements Around Kerinci Seblat National Park, Indonesia'
A new UNREDD brief has considered ‘REDD+ and adaptation: Identifying complementary responses to climate change’ [pdf] [website].
And finally, the World Widlife Fund and partners have published 'Tropical Deforestation and Carbon Emissions from Protected Area Downgrading, Downsizing, and Degazettement (PADDD)'. For a copy of the article, contact lead author Jessica Forrest.
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(Photo from IIED's Animation, Inspiring action for sustainable fisheries: Today and the future)
Poverty and conservation news stories
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PCLGs ‘most clicked’ in 2014
To mark the last issue of PCLG News for 2014, we have put together a list of the top three most popular news items and Facebook posts of the year:
Popular in PCLG News
1. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) – Challenges and Responses
Economic arguments have made a strong case for early action and policy change to address the threats of climate change, but could the same be done for biodiversity loss? This publication describes TEEB’s efforts to date, and progress towards its goal of mainstreaming the economics of nature.
2. Strengthening the Social Impacts of Sustainable Landscapes Programs
TNC’s Guide for Practitioners through design, implementation and monitoring plans for Landscape Programs. The guidebook aims to highlight the critical importance of understanding and identifying the key strategies that deliver multiple benefits for both people and conservation.
3. The elephant in the room: sustainable use in the illegal wildlife trade debate
IIED’s briefing paper acknowledges the increasing international attention on the illegal wildlife trade, but underlines that the subsequent initiatives in response have tended to emphasise law enforcement and demand reduction. There has been considerably less focus on effective incentives for community-based and private sector management.
Popular on PCLG Facebook
1. In the wake of predictions that the oceans will be fishless by 2050, IIED produced an animation to showcase its work on the economics of marine and coastal fisheries.
2. IIED’s Phil Franks reflected on the World Parks Congress November 2014 in Sydney - ‘Ensuring equitable management of protected areas: we're still defining the issues’.
3. The Guardian reported on the release of Pandaleaks in October, ‘WWF International accused of selling its soul to corporations’
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Featured publication
REDD+ on the ground
A case-book of subnational initiatives across the globe from CIFOR. The book describes 23 initiatives in six countries - Brazil, Peru, Cameroon, Tanzania, Indonesia and Vietnam. For each of the initiatives, the authors state the basic facts (where, who, why and when), explain the strategies, describe those smallholders living in and around the intervention areas, and highlight key challenges and lessons learned.
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REDD, A Gallery of Conflicts, Contradictions and Lies
A summary of reports from WRM of 14 REDD projects across Kenya, Mozambique, Madagascar, Uganda, Indonesia, Cambodia, Brazil, Peru and Mexico. The authors detail that the projects all show a number of structural characteristics that undermine forest peoples' rights and fail to address the deforestation and climate crises.
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Other media
Richard Curtis (the renown Hollywood screenwriter, producer & director) has written a guest article for IISD on ‘Making the SDGs Famous and Popular’.
Chris Sandbrook has blogged to ask, ‘Is conservation really better together?’
The CBD has announced the theme for the International Day for Biological Biodiversity on the 22nd May 2015, ‘Biodiversity for Sustainable Development’.
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Forthcoming events
Register for the Oxford Biodiversity Institute’s fourth annual symposium, ‘Functions and Vales of Biodiversity’, to be held on the 6th and 7th of January 2015, Oxford, UK. IIED’s Dilys Roe will be chairing Session 5 on Biodiversity Goods and Bads: the role of biodiversity in poverty alleviation, with guests Terry Sunderland (CIFOR), Lykke Anderson (INESAD, Bolivia) and Arthur Mugisha (IUCN, Uganda).
Save the date for the London Zoological Society’s event ‘Global land use change: cause and consequences for biodiversity’ to be held on the 10th of February 2015, London, UK.
Call for conference papers from the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law and partners for their conference on Biodiversity, Sustainable Development & the Law to be held on the 20-22nd February 2015 at St. John’s College Divinity School, Cambridge, UK. The deadline for submitting abstracts is the 20th of December 2014.
IIED alongside four international partners are organising the symposium ‘Beyond Enforcement: Communities, governance, incentives and sustainable use in combating illegal wildlife trade’. The symposium will be held near Johannesburg, South Africa from 27 February to 1 March 2015. More information.
Save the date for the London Zoological Society’s event ‘Are economic growth and biodiversity conservation compatible?’ to be held on the 10th of March 2015, London, UK.
Register for the Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2015, ‘Linking Land tenure and Use for Shared Prosperity’, to be held on the 23rd – 27th March 2015 in Washington, DC, US.
Call for abstracts from ERT Conservation and partners for their conference on ‘Building Capacity for Conservation and Resource Management in Africa - An exchange of ideas, opportunities & best practice’, to be held from the 27th - 30th of July 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Save the date for the XIV World Forestry Congress to be hosted from the 11th – 17th of September 2015, South Africa. The Congress has released a call for abstracts, posters and videos.
Save the date for Pathways Kenya 2016, ‘Integrating Human Dimensions into Fish and Wildlife Management’, to be held from the 10th – 13th of January 2016, at Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club, Nanyuki, Kenya.
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Other opportunities
Vacancy announcements
The Wildlife Conservation Society is seeking to fill the following positions:
- Logistics Unit Director to be based in Nouabale Ndoki National Park, Republic of Congo
- Conservation Pilot, WCS Gabon to be based in Libreville, Gabon
- Conservation Pilot, WCS Cameroon-Chad to be based in Bouba-Njidda and Sena-Oura Transboundary Parks
- Conservation Pilot, WCS Mozambique to be based in Niassa Reserve, Mozambique
More information and complete job listings can be found here.
UNEP- WCMC is seeking a Data Manager and Director of Programmes. The deadlines for these posts is the 5th and 8th of January 2015 respectively.
The Jane Goodall Institute is seeking a Grant Writer, to be based in Vienna, Virginia. More information.
The MacArthur Foundation are seeking a Programme Officer in conservation and sustainable development. More information.
Funding & awards
Call for pre-proposals from USAID’s Partnership for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) program – PEER is particularly interested in wildlife trafficking and conservation in Kenya, biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazon and forestry and climate change in India. The pre-proposal deadline is the 9th January 2015.
Call for nominations for the 2015 Young Women in Conservation Biology Award from the African section of the Society of Conservation. The deadline for nominations is the 30th of January 2015.
The GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge has been launched, aiming to inspire experts to create innovative applications using open-access biodiversity data. The deadline to submit your ideas is the 2nd of March 2015. The six finalists will compete for a €20,000 First Prize later in 2015. More information.
Open-ended call from the ESPA Regional Opportunities Fund Small Grants Scheme, aimed at enhancing the impact and research uptake of ESPA funded projects and the ESPA programme as a whole. Open ended call until 1st June 2016.
Training & further education
Applications are still open for the MPhil degree in Conservation Leadership at the University of Cambridge's Department of Geography. A key aim of the course is to build the capacity of conservation leaders from tropical countries. There is considerable scholarship funding available for the academic year beginning in October 2015. The deadline for applications has been extended to the 6th of January 2015. More information.
Applications are open for the Kinship Conservation Fellows' environmental leadership program that focuses on market based solutions to environmental problems. The 2015 Program takes place from Sunday, June 28 - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 in Bellingham, Washington. Online applications are open through January 26, 2015. More information.
The Centre for Ecology & Conservation at the University of Exeter has announced a number of Scholarships for their suite of Masters Programmes. Online applications are open through to the 30th of April 2015. More information.
The MESPOM Consortium is inviting applications for the Erasmus Mundus Masters Course in Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management (MESPOM) in 2015-2017. Online applications are open through the 1st of June 2015. More information.
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