Think Nature: A guide to using nature-based solutions

Together with CEC's strategic input, IUCN's Eastern and Southern Africa's Regional Programme published this educational documentary to show how communities living around the Mt Elgon in Kenya and Uganda use natural solutions, which are always available, to help tackle environmental challenges efficiently. The video is meant as tool for training sessions for county government officials of different departments in both countries to actively engage their sector in rolling out the IUCN approach for ecosystem-based solutions for climate change.

Think Nature: Improving Community Resilience

Together with CEC's strategic input, IUCN's Eastern and Southern Africa's Regional Programme published this introductory documentary to show how communities living around the Mt Elgon in Kenya and Uganda use natural solutions, which are always available, to help tackle environmental challenges efficiently. The 6 minute video is meant to give people in goverbment, NGOs and academia a first glimpse on what is meant with nature-based solutions. 

Rising Stewards: Improving Community Resilience

Together with CEC's strategic input, IUCN's Eastern and Southern Africa's Regional Programme published this introductory documentary to show how communities in Lira, Uganda and Garissa, Kenya are using natural solutions, which are always available, to help tackle environmental challenges efficiently. The 8 minute video is meant to showcase the results of the IUCN apporach of nature-based solutions to donors and international organizations to trigger funding to roll out the IUCN pilot projects on a larger scale in both countries. The first donor already has committed to continue to support the IUCN approach. See also the post I wrote immediately after the field interviews and video shooting about change strategies.

Behavior change

Top 10 Mistakes in Behavior Change from Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford

Change strategies: two stories

Improving community resilience through nature based solutions in Kenya

Boka – situated in the North Eastern region of Keya - in our grandmothers time provided the only water resource for all pastoralist communities in a vast dryland area of over 200 km2. The Boka wells and rainy seasons offered enough water for people and cattle and there were no conflicts of any significance. Problems that did surface were dealt with by the council of elders.

After independence a disconnect developed between the new legal systems  governing water, land management, other jurisdictions and the old traditional system of the council of elders dealing with these issues. Population was growing, so were the numbers of livestock. Climate change caused an increasing numbers of droughts which caused water scarcity and conflicts over access to water.

These conflicts often came to a climax of serious fights over who can feed his animals first and there is no family that has no history of family members being killed or severly wounded in such fights. These desperate situations led to attention of donors and investments of them in water management and related themes in the area. IUCN put in place a series of interventions that repaired the disconnect between the old and new water governance systems by helping local authorities and communities formulate Bylaws that regulate access and use of water. IUCN also put Infrastructure in place to channel water from the river in the rainy season into the wells and keep them better fed than before. This all being accompanied by a series of capacity development  and awareness raising activities.

Now the settled and pastoral communities in Boka can use the water resources for both human consumption and for livestock in a an organized way and satisfying all basic needs again. Any conflict is solved through dialogue and other measures foreseen in the Bylaws. The water conflicts out of the way means a huge positive change for the communities as far as health is concerned, family income, education for children and peace in the communities. More investment in water management infrastructure and local capacity development will offer even more opportunities for communities to cope with the effects of climate change and increased droughts.

Improving community resilience through nature based solutions in Uganda

Arwotngo – situated in the Northern region of Uganda - in our grandmothers time was a peaceful Parish, where people lived a simple but good life. They had ample livestock and the fertile soil provided many opportunities for agriculture. People were used to drinking milk and eating meat and vegetables. There was no indiscriminate cutting of trees and when you needed one you went to your grandfather to ask for permission. There were no conflicts of any significance. Problems that did surface were dealt with by the council of elders.

In the nineteen seventies things began to change. Tribes with weapons started to rob us from our livestock. Women were raped. Children were abducted and never returned. Then all out war started. There was little food. When the LRA entered the stage things became even worse. In 2002 all people fled from the rural areas to Lira, where we lived in refugee camps depended on International Relief Aid. Outside the camps it was not safe. Inside we barely survived. In 2005 things began to improve and the first community members went back to their homes. In 2008 the majority was back.

Life in the camp was bad, but returning home was maybe worse. We had no international support anymore, we had no housing, no food no nothing. So people started to cut trees to cultivate crops and sell charcoal to the trucks that came from Lira to collect the fuel. Wetland were turned into rice paddies. There was a lot of domestic violence, we were constantly struggling for money. Water points were shared between people and livestock, there was no sanitation causing a range of health issues. Wetlands were drained and during droughts we had almost no water and in the rainy season the rivers flooded our crops. Then IUCN came. First we thought they were going to grab our land, as we were growing rice in the wetlands. Later we realized they meant well with us as they gave us small sums of money we could use to buy seedlings.

We established a relationship of trust and they taught us saving, agro-forestry, the use of fruit trees, e.g. the shea nut tree. They started conservation fund from which we could borrow money to improve our income, on the condition that we participated in their water management activities by demarcating riverbanks, fencing water points, organizing ourselves to formulate by-laws etc. Very soon we saw the positive results: more and better quality water, more income for households, more peace at home, no more tree cutting, less floods. Now we have a much more positive vision for the future and we feel we can cope better with extreme droughts and floods.

Comparing the change strategies

In Kenya the land and water management changes did not really affect business as usual in the community. The men continued to be pastoralists, their women looked after their families, they started jointly a garden to diversify their livelihoods. The behavior change of community members was driven by the harsh experience of two years of extreme drought: no water for people and cattle. The pain of changing was far less than the pain of not changing. Improving and co-managing the water resources, especially by integrating the traditional governance systems was not a painful change. The only big change was the increased role of women in managing the resources and  the new phenomenon of girls going to school (a consequence of the new position of their mothers). A pain that men at last could deal with.  

In Uganda a similar strategy to technically improve land and water management, diversify livelihoods, strengthen self governance and learning did not work automatically. People were not interested to participate in the IUCN project. In the end they asked for a community revolving fund for small loans as a condition to participate in the project. Here the pain of changing without the fund would have been far bigger than the pain of not changing. Giving up their charcoal burning and rice paddies without an alternative would mean no income. In the camps they had learned to trade and set up small businesses, in the fund they saw the opportunity to use these skills and have a source of income for the short term. Fortunately IUCN was flexible enough to adapt their strategy. Then the change in the community started to develop along similar lines as in Kenya.

In both countries women were driven by values as self-direction (they saw the opportunity to become more independent) and security (they realized the importance of diversification of livelihoods). The men were driven by tradition (the by laws gave a new impetus to the traditional governance intstitutions such as the Council of Elders). These values proved stronger for both men and women than the values underpinning their behavior before the project came. For men driving values had been power (men are the owners of the cattle and that was more important for them than anything else) and hedonism (easy life). The behavior of the women was mostly driven by conformity (obedience). To upscale the project it is important to take into account the driving values of current and desired behavior.

Human values

This is what I learned from Stanley Asah in our workshops on conservation psychology. Human values are transsituational goals of varied importance, that serve as guiding principles in people’s personal life and in the life of their society.Values are goals or deep rooted beliefs. They pertain to a desirable end state or mode of conduct. Values transcend specific situations. Depending on the person some values are more important than other values. People have individual systems or patterns of value priorities.

Values are acquired through socialization with dominant group values and personal experiences. Values are relatively very stable, much more than attitudes, cultural influences, worldviews,  perceptions or influences from the social environment. Individual value priority systems determine one’s identity and behavior. Values interact sometimes in conflicting ways.

Ultimately values drive people’s behavior, serve their interests, are standards for judging others, and enable people to cope with reality through transforming existential necessities into expressible specific values to facilitate communicative action. Values are responses to our needs as biological organisms, for coordinated social interaction, for the smooth functioning and survial of social entities. 

Universal human values are salient motivations towards the following different end goals:

1.       Power – social status and prestige, control or dominance over people or resources (the end goals is authority and or wealth)

2.       Achievement – personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards (the end goal is to be successful, capable)

3.       Hedonism – pleasure and sensuous gratification for oneself (the end goal is to have pleasure, enjoying life)

4.       Stimulation – Excitement, novelty and challenge in life (the end goals is to have a daring, varied life)

5.       Self-direction – independent through choosing action, creating, exploring (the end goal is creativity, freedom, curiosity)

6.       Universalism – understand, appreciate, tolerate and protect the welfare of all people and nature (the end goals is equality, justice, protecting the environment)

7.       Benevolence – preserve and enhance the welfare of people with whom one is frequent personal contact (the end goal is to be helpful, honest, forgiving)

8.       Tradition – respect, commit to and accept the custums and ideas of traditional culture and/or religion (the end goals is to be humble, devout)

9.       Conformity – restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others, violate social expectations or norms (the end goals is politeness and obedience)

10.    Security – safety, harmony, and stability of society of relationships and of self (the end goal is compliance with social order)

11.    Meaning – find meaning in life, spiritual life, inner harmony (the end goal is spiritualiy).

Leadership or wisdom

Ten-and-a-half thoughts about thought leadership from The Writer from SarahRaeburn

 I have always had some difficulties – for many reasons – with the concept of leadership. One reason e.g. being that after all this years of sustainability leadership investments, I ask myself: in which positions did these students finally land, where can we see the impact?  And people Ghandi never were trained as leader nor did he like to be a leader, however hundreds of thousands wanted to follow him. So I was very pleased when a few weeks ago I saw this on the net about thought leadership. For me we should - like Lao Tse - not talk about leadership but about wisdom. 

Concept note for an anti-rhino-poaching campaign

Asked to comment on a project proposal for an anti-rhino poaching campaign, I noticed that it was very much an activity driven project proposal. My reaction was: "next time before starting to fill in the donor's template make a short concept note that you circulate to others to get input. Now it is difficult to give strategic advice as there is no real strategy. The project proposal immediately focuses on activities that seem to be fun and not on desired results in specific audiences. For me the main reasoning of such a concept note in should be something like this:

All signs indicate that Rhino poaching in Namibia will be an increasing issue in the very near future. The entry of international organized crime into Namibia will not only threaten species and decrease Namibia’s natural heritage and capital, but it also will introduce other forms of crime and corruption, damage Namibia’s reputation as a tourist destination, negatively affect the life of people in local communities to name only a few consequences. Legislation, law enforcement and economic measures alone will be insufficient to adequately tackle the issue. In reality what mostly happens is that politicians call for committees or expert meetings; national enforcement officers put an other priority on their list; local enforcement officers are confronted with again another priority and continue business as usual; other ministries look away as do small and medium enterprises who may suspect their clients are involved in illegal wildlife trade. In short these instruments may not work without a serious investment in awareness raising, attitude and behaviour change of a number of actors.

This project offers an opportunity to help realize a future without Rhino poaching in Namibia. A future of Namibia as an African country where rhinos and other wildlife flourish. A future where parliamentarians are keen to set the right priorities for appropriate legislation and governance. A future where law enforcement institutions and officers are aware of the challenges, are immune for bribes and motivated to take these challenges  head on. A future where the relevant ministries mobilize funds to provide financial incentives to local communities to monitor wildlife and immediately report crime or criminal intruders. A future where there is a broad support in Namibian society for all efforts to prevent, reduce and eradicate poaching, where travel agents, hotel owners, car rentals, restaurants and shop owners  do not facilitate in any way the stay and operations of people involved Rhino poaching. Where media give positive feedback on rhino conservation successes, where they provide education and are a channel for messages from local people and bottom-up initiatives. Where media make rhino conservation the talk of the town and stimulate word of mouth. A future where rhino is a broadly shared national emotion!

The vision of this project is that to reach such a future, one needs to raise awareness about the uniqueness of the rhino, its innocence, its beauty, its place in folk tales. People also need to know of the heroic activities of normal community members and organizations who in the past and today already are conserving the rhino, the opportunities for many in Namibia to better capitalize on the current rhino population, the negative impacts that wildlife crime will have on society if no action is taken, the concrete possibilities people have to contribute to rhino conservation. The way to raise this awareness is not by telling people what is good, but by appealing to their traditional value systems and link these values with the Rhino issue: how the rhinos in our community make us happy; how it is a longstanding tradition and normal in our society not to kill rhinos; how we view in our culture rhinos and other wildlife as integral part of our natural environment almost like family;  how we protect the innocent rhinos against poachers who want to earn a quick buck; how we see rhino conservation as part of our social justice in Namibia, how we see it as immoral to in anyway assist poachers and illegal traders.

The strategic initiatives this project offers – when designed and executed fast enough and well enough will make the vision described above a reality. The initiatives comprise activities of compiling and distributing local stories, individual stories, children’s drawings, songs, poems, music events, campfire events, competitions and other cultural activities that illustrate how traditional and cultural values link with rhino conservation. Some activities are focused on the general public and distributed through mass media. They provide the general messages and create the feel, emotion and motivation for a Namibian future with Rhinos and without poachers. Other activities are tailored strategically to specific audiences, e.g. schools, universities, parliamentarians, law enforcement, tourism SMEs etc. They appeal to specific emotions and values of each target audience and convey concrete messages of how they can contribute to a future of Namibia with rhinos and without poachers.  The activities are initiated by a coalition of government institutions and NGOs and coordinated by Natuye, with strategic advice of IUCN CEC. The costs of such a project far exceed the current budget of the proposal. If that is a problem you make this a pilot project that shows how it can work and explores ways to roll it out over the whole nation.

Learning from the mental transformation process

Training to transform the mind is in Asian Bhuddism often depicted as a man trying to catch an ox or a monk walking with an elephant. In a posting some years ago I tried to summarize my learning for behaviour change from the Zen story of taming the ox:

1. analyzing the situation
2. identifying the behaviour we want to change
3. defining desired behaviour
4. analyzing obstacles for change
5. analyzing motives for change
6. making change easy
7. making the new behaviour normal and desirable
8. change has turned into a habit
9. we understand everything changes and all phenomena are interdependent
10. we apply the learning about change in other spheres of life.

Most important is to realize that the end is not static, but the beginning of a new cycle to create  more impact.

The secret of change

The secret of change is not to focus all your energy on fighting the old, but to focus on building the new. This quote from Socrates keeps creeping up in my mind while working with the new European Natura 2000 strategic planning tool. This Prioritized Action Framework  (PAF) focuses on threats to species and habitats. The tool tries to analyze all the reasons why we are losing biodiversity and tries to provide priority reasons and measures for investing in biodiversity. 

I wonder whether it would lead to real change. To focus on reasons is almost like to focus on excuses why we did not achieve conservation results in the first place. It is almost as giving in to the habit of procrastination, not doing what we set out to do and getting away with. This common psychological 'failure' habit of people, institutions and society is the key obstacle for conserving biodiversity. 

So maybe the tool should focus or at least also make an effort to focus on what we can learn from conservation results and how we can realize more results. Results are driven by success habits, e.g. commitment, consistent action, accountability, doing the right things and joint celebration. The tool we need should help create a psychological environment that drives us to positive action. In the end change only takes place through action. Maybe conservationists in the European Commission, in governments and elsewhere should pay more attention to the psychology for a better world. 

Psychology for a Better World

Psychology offers three core ideas if you want to make a difference towards sustainabvility:
1. People are happiness seekers. Connecting with people's desire for happiness triggers positive change qualities like creativity, cooperation and openness to change. We need to appeal to these positive emotions.
2. People are social. People are natural imitators. People change behaviour to blend with their environment. Doing and viewing are overlapping brainprocesses. So play into the idea what is normal and make visible sustainable behaviours of individuals and organizartions, so that they become normal.
3. People want to be good. They want to protect innocent others, and to be fair to others. These moral behavours are very powerful. Frame issues as social justice and make people to live up to their values. What they do in their lifestyle, what they do in their organizations and what they do as members of civil society.
Download Niki Harre's publication.

I'm in love with the forest. I want to protect it.

In inviting others to change behavior, it is useful to share the stories of others who changed: what it took them, how it reinforces their deeper beliefs and what makes them feel good about the change. This is a 4 years old video, in which Muktar tells about his change from being an illegal logger to becoming a ranger.  

Story of Positive change

Short story to illustrtate change and the role of communication.

The Story of Change

I thought I was a communicator, it turned out I am a builder...!

Change starts with experience and belief

Mainstreaming interventions at the action and result level are difficult when they are not supported on the level of experience and belief. L’Orient le Jour reports in an article today about conservation organizations in Lebanon trying to find support for the implementation of a hunting law that regulates hunting and aims to address illegal hunting and the massacring of domestic and migrating birds. In the press the conservation efforts are pictured as an anti-hunting front. Hunting is very popular for men in Lebanon, who already as youngsters get their first hunting rifle. Without offering the experience of nature in a different way, and without changing the belief that hunting proves your masculinity, it will be difficult to find enough police to make an impact on the bird populations.

Beliefs stronger than comprehension

Public apathy over climate change is often attributed to a deficit in comprehension. The public knows too little science, it is claimed, to understand the evidence or avoid being misled. A recent study showes that beliefs are stronger than comprehension of scientific knowledge. Members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change. Rather, they were the ones among whom cultural polarization was greatest. This result suggests that public divisions over climate change stem not from the public’s incomprehension of science but from a distinctive conflict of interest. At the one hand there is the personal interest individuals have in forming beliefs in line with those held by others with whom they share close ties. At the other hand there is the collective interest they all share in making use of the best available science to promote common welfare. The conflict between the personal (often short term) interest and the collective (often long term) interest, is in many cases won by the the former. That is the reason that more information does not work. Information is an intervention at the action level. For positive change we first and foremost will need interventions at the level of experience and beliefs.

Mainstreaming = change

Mainstreaming is helping others to change and managing that change process. It is not focusing on wrong behavior and telling others what to do and what not to do. It is important to explore first current experiences and beliefs of the audience about the issue of mainstreaming. Audience research for a communication strategy should clarify in what stage of change the audience is. That will determine the communication objectives, messages and means to help them move to a next stage.

Unilever's 5 Levers for Change

Consumer behaviour change is one of todays topics in the Sustainable Living Lab. Next to the video there is a publication you can downlad.

'Stories, Sizzle, Salience & Social Proof'

Futerra Co-Founder Ed Gillespie delivers a speech for the 3 Pillars Network Sustainable Behaviour Change conference in Sydney, Australia. November 2011

The Girl Effect

Awareness raising is not the same as behaviour change. This two minute video has a powerful message that analyzes the issue of gender and poverty eradication. The objective is to have
the audience surf to the girleffect to learn more and join the movement. The message is: the Girl Effect is a solution to poverty. If we do our part, 600 million girls in the developing world will do the rest. This message would be even more powerful if it clearly explains what it means if we do our part - what is it I can do to help bring about positive change. Awareness itself does not lead to change. Action does.