🔥The 9th Round of Easy Loan, Earn $40 Reward is in progress❗️ ⏰ Promotion Period: January 15th - Feburary 15th, 2025 👉 Register now and check more details at gate.io/campaigns/358

"Getting a full-house of PA Directors for the dialogue with AICA and their seriousness about it all was not only humbling for me, but also a clear demonstration of their willingness to engage with IPLCs on conservation related issues. Community Leaders Network of Southern Africa @Jamma_Int RRI - Rights and Resources Initiative

Pleased too not only with the APAD Conference Communique endorsing AICA as the authentic and legitimate voice of Africa's IPLCs, but also APAD's commitment to work with AICA on rights based conservation. Sustainable Actions For Nature Community Leaders Network of Southern Africa @Jamma_Int Kaddu Sebunya RRI - Rights and Resources Initiative KAWICCODA CSO

As the conservation community celebrates #InternationalWomensDay let's remember the widows & orphans found in that state as a result of human-wildlife conflict. HWC is not just a conservation issue; it's also a human rights, & equity issue. It dehumanises & worsens inequality

It's time for decisive action on HWC to give marginalised #localcommunities some dignity; amend neocolonial laws that deny them compensation, and re-engineer the conservation business model to deliver more benefits to #localcommunities at the household level. It's possible!

Africa's Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities are converging in Maputo this week for a Strategy meeting under the #AICA banner. Born of the IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress in Kigali 2022, #AICA is a Pan-African IPLC Alliance that seeks to unify the IPLC voice for collective agency & action.

#AICA's top priorities include secure land rights & tenure, unlocking the economic value of protected areas for IPLCs, finding lasting solutions to human-wildlife conflict, and sustainable & direct funding for IPLC organizations. Time to put people at the centre of conservation!

At the #AICA Maputo Strategy Workshop, Africa's IPLCs reaffirmed their commitment to move beyond lofty resolutions & Declarations to resolutely confront their conservation related challenges to end socio-economic marginalisation & rights abuses. Community Leaders Network of Southern Africa RRI - Rights and Resources Initiative

#AICA is premised on the stark reality that Africa's IPLCs face similar challenges routed in colonial history for which collective agency & action is needed. #AICA must be vigilant to arcane academic definitions of IP&LCs that seek divide, weaken, and make Africa's IPLCs pliable

One of many ivory contraband seizures; what does CITES & animal rights groups expect govts to do, burn it? As long as legal ivory supply remains artificially choked, prices will continue to shoot through the roof and attract the daredevils out there. Time for sanity to prevail!

Setting minimum prices for farm produce sends an adverse signal to the market to cluster prices around these low minimums. Keeping crop prices artificially low amounts to a subtle income transfer from poor smallholder farmers to rich urbanites and agro-dealers. Morally wrong!

Yet in a context where 85% of the population depends on agriculture for food and income security, suppressing farm incomes and locking 85% of the population in poverty is an own goal as it also works against well-meaning anti-poverty programs in other sectors.

With poverty and livelihood pressures a known key driver of the massive deforestation and environmental degradation, keeping farm incomes low is suicidal for biodiversity loss and climate change goals. Increasing farm incomes is probably the most effective conservation strategy

Always been a fan of Tusk, and it is characteristic of their Founder Charlie Mayhew OBE to show nuance, good sense & willingness to engage on difficult issues. Wish more #conservation leaders & organisations would speak openly rather than support quietly dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

Africa's #IPLCs, thru #AICA/Pan-African IPLC Alliance, made a strong showing at this year's IUCN Africa Conservation Forum to contribute to finding African solutions for nature and people. Blending science and African wisdom is critical to meeting biodiversity and climate goals.

Addressing historical grievances, human-wildlife conflict, securing land & resource rights, maximising benefits, and sustainable & direct funding for IPLC organizations remain among some of the top priorities. This is a clarion call to put people at the centre of conservation.

Forests: 🌲 are home to most of the world’s biodiversity 🌲 act as critical carbon sinks 🌲 combat soil erosion 🌲 remove impurities from the water we drink and the air we breathe Learn how Global Environment Facility (GEF) is driving up global investment in forests: wrld.bg/wcUs50SWnKJ

Heading to Bonamanzi Game Reserve for the African #Rhino Conference; keen to learn how rhino conservation is interfacing with #localcommunities. It's not a long time ago when these majestic creatures used to roam through my village, yet now seriously threatened!

centerforahumaneeconomy.org/2025/02/18/ele… Looks like powerful animal welfare groups have captured Botswana elephants; CBNRM and all it stands for might be at risk! What are casually called wildlife corridors here, to local communities they are actually villages, people, farms, and their food!

Back in Windhoek for regional NBSAP knowledge exchange event; great for sharing experiences and mutual learning. Descending on approach to Hosea Kutako Airport, the aerial view was spectacularly green. Never seen it like this before; great for people, livestock, and wildlife!

Today I took time off to visit the Community Leaders Network of Southern Africa office in Windhoek. I felt proud that CLN has progressed from an idea at the Africa Wildlife Economy Summit in Vic Falls in 2020 to reality today. All in pursuit of putting people at the centre of conservation in Southern Africa