Changing habits

The Chunoti Co-Management Committee was a 2012 Equator Prize Winner from Bangladesh. The project is described in United Nations Development Programme. 2013. Chunoti Co-Management Committee, Bangladesh. EquatorInitiative Case Study Series. New York, NY. Here we try to retell the story from the perspective of the Committee sharing their learning over the years with staffs and decision makers of the forest department.

Strategic Story Elements
Target audience: Forest department officials

Key point: Effective co-management means that communities should be in the lead

Conflict: Habits of forest department and habits of communities 

Hero: Anwar Kamal

Adversary: Forest department and villagers

I am Anwar Kamal. I feel proud to be the Vice President of the Chunoti Co-Management Committee from Bangladesh. I have loved the Chunoti forest all my life. This wonderful forest lies South of Chittagong city. It used to be green all year round with tropical trees and areas of sungrass, which were used for many purposes. The forest is the home of many animals, birds, and rare plants. Even elephants pass through the forest on their way to Myanmar and back. The small farming communities in the area used to slash and burn small parts of the forest for their livelihoods.

When my parents were young the Chunoti forest was declared a Wildlife Sanctuary. But they also witnessed the start of more and more logging to meet the demand form the brick and timber factories in Chittagong. Slowly the forest began to make place for waste land and plantations. To make the Wildlife Sanctuary work the forest department engaged in dialogues with the local communities to promote co-management of the area. The result was the Chunoti Co-Management Committee. I was part of the Committee right from the start. However we soon found out that for poor protected area-dependent communities to stop destroying natural resources for their livelihoods, they must have the chance to ensure basic alternative livelihoods.

Changing behaviour and challenging age-old livelihood practices is no easy task. Motivation and awareness can help enlighten communities but nothing should be imposed on them. Communities should lead the planning and work, with only facilitation from external groups. This was difficult from the perspective of the forest law and the way the forest department always had functioned. But co-management only started functioning when the communities could take the lead. When I finally reached that point with the forest department, women started to lead patrols trough the protected area to prevent illegal logging and poaching. We introduced bamboo craft making, fish farming, basket weaving and we in the Committee helped to ensure fair prices and market demand. 

Now the communities are working on eco-tourism. The Committee decided that part of the revenues is for the community, part is to be invested in reforestation. The Committee also influences legislation and governance practices. In my experience working in protected area co-management, three major threats are: a lack of any sense of ownership among communities in and around protected areas; the dependence of ultra-poor people on these areas for their basic livelihoods; and corruption in the authorities responsible for protected area management.

Small steps towards the larger goal

Sisi Initiative was a 2012 Equator Prize winner. Facts and fgures are described in a UNDP case study. United Nations Development Programme. 2013. Sisi Initiative Site Support Group, Fiji. Equator Initiative Case Study Series. New York, NY. Based on this information we retell here the story according to the principles of story telling. We choose to do so from the perspective of the treasurer of the Sisi Initiative, telling other indigenous land owners in the country how they generated positive change.

Strategic Story Elements
Target audience: indigenous landowners in other parts of the country

Key point: small steps towards new livelihoods can help you, your land and that of your children

Conflict: Community reluctance to egnage in conservation of their land without concrete benefits

Hero: Mr. Silio Lalaqila, Treasurer, Sisi Initiative Site Support Group, Fiji             

Adversary: Communities engaging in activities harming the forest and biodiversity

My name is Silio Lalaqila and I am the Treasurer of the Sisi Initiative. I am from the Island of Vanua Levu that is situated in the North of Fiji. The mountainous peninsula of Natewa Tunuloa on the island is rich of forests. At sunrise you can hear the songs of many birds. One of them is the Sisi, the rare Fijian silktail bird, that we are all proud of. In the days of my grandparents the people in our small indigenous communities were mostly farmers. They occasionally went into the forest for firewood, timber, hunting, some wild foods and medicinal plants.

As it seems that all good things come to an end, that lifestyle slowly disappeared. People started to cut forests for mahogany or coconut plantations. Sometimes people set the forest on fire for such purposes. Commercial logging brought in money but also caused erosion and floods. Lack of water and bad quality drinking water became part of our daily problems. The provincial government and international NGOs started to organize workshops to create awareness and build capacity for positive change. I went there and we discussed alternatives for income generated by logging. With the help of conservation NGOs we started our Sisi Initiative, a Community based group of volunteers.

When we work in the local communities we tell them “Protecting biodiversity is not just about protecting birds or plants, it’s about protecting what’s rightfully yours, your children’s and your children’s children’s. What type of planet will our future generations be living in by 2020? Patience is a virtue and together with hard work and commitment, you’re sure to succeed and be recognized for the little things you do.” So slowly we started over the years to engage clan land owners in agreeing not to log for at least ten years and make a joint management plan for the forest. In return they would benefit from alternative livelihood schemes. That was a first step. We developed the next steps one by one, as success make success follow.    

Today they engage in beekeeping, sandalwood farming, yam cultivation, poultry. For women we have handicrafts training, e.g. basket weaving, jewelery making, pastry baking etc. With the help of the Forest Department the communities help restore the forest to reduce soil erosion. These are all small contributions to the larger goal of conserving our land as we received it from our ancestors. 

Consumer model or investing in resilience?

Namdrik Atoll Local Resources Committee is a 2012 Equator Prize winner. The case is described in United Nations Development Programme. 2013. Namdrik Atoll Local Resources Committee, The Marshall Islands. Equator Initiative Case Study Series. New York, NY. Here we try to retell the story from the perspective of the mayor, imagining how he would address is peers, p[olicy makers on other Micronesioan islands.

Strategic Story Elements
Target audience: Other policy makers of Micronesian Islands

Key point: Climate change asks for reconsidering the modern consumerism model

Conflict: Consumerism versus working on resilience

Hero: Clarence Luther, Mayor of Namdrik Atoll  

Adversary: Modern lifestyle and consumer habits of the inhabitants of the atol

“People in the West mostly have a picture of the idyllic life on our Micronesian Islands. They think of palm trees, white beaches, an abundance of fruits and happy people”. Clarence Luther, the impressive Mayor of Namdrik Atoll, Marshall Islands smiles and continues: “That may have been so for the faraway past. When I was a boy over 50 years ago, we indeed ate our own fish and grew our own food. We couldn’t rely on the supply ship which only came maybe twice year.”

“Today we are part of modern life with tinned food, bottled drinks, fridges. You name it. But now if the supply ship doesn’t come for three weeks we are worried – what will we do, what will we eat? This question was bothering me more and more. Especially when I learned about climate change and seal level rise. So I started helping my community to develop one by one initiatives with support from government and partners. We reintroduced traditional crops such as breadfruit, taro and native pandanus. It protects and restores the soil. We started value-added secondary food processing industries. A pearl farm to provide jobs and fund community development projects in education and health. We introduced rainwater harvesting and solar technology."

"In doing so I realised that if we don’t do what we are doing it takes your power away and you don’t know what to expect. We can do something to make our lives better for now and the future. If we don’t do something we are not going to survive for long. This way we have a lot of lessons to show other parts of Micronesia and Melanesia. For example, we demonstrate that you don’t have to follow the consumer model.  I know that we all do to some extent but just showing that you don’t have to follow it totally." 

"Now we are taking care of our natural resources and our mangroves. We do not have to be scared anymore if the ship does not arrive in time, we can stand on our own feet: this is what they call resilience."

Respect as a basis for help

The Indian Sashwat NGO received in 2012 the Equator Prize. Based on the UNDP case study (United Nations Development Programme. 2013. Shashwat, India. Equator Initiative Case Study Series. New York, NY), we retell the story from the perspective of one of the founders sharing with other NGOs how Sashwat could add value to the official resettlement arrangements of the Indian government. 

Strategic Story Elements
Target audience: other NGOs
Key point: respect as a basis for helping communities to help themselves improve their life
Conflict: displacement of villages after construction of a dam
Hero: Ms Kusum Karnik
Adversary: desparation, illiteracy and apathy of displaced tribal communities  

"It is important to understand that those who have lived with the forest for centuries and preserved the forest for centuries are the best people to know how to conserve it, how to use it, and how to take care of it. Without them, who knows the forest?” In her colorful sari, Ms Kusum Karnik a strong local NGO leader with an academic background, tells about the ancient culture, the traditions and tribal life in rural Maharashtra, India.

She then tells with passion how the construction of a large dam disrupted the life of many villages in areas that would be flooded. She tells about the damage to nature. How helpless, desperate and hopeless the people felt when they had to move. She explains that she decided to take up the challenge of dealing with the apathy and engaging the affected illiterate tribal farmers in positive action. "Traditionally we believe that one must respect the people one works with. Vision and mission are not written on a board somewhere high above an office, they are discussed; and the values we believe in – fraternity, equality, freedom, justice, truth, love of fellow human beings, and valuing physical labour – are often brought up regarding day-to-day matters, thus keeping this spirit alive.”

Based on this philosophy of respect, equity and equality Ms Karnik continues, she founded with others the Sashwat organization to help the displaced communities with concrete actions that could improve their situation. Over the years - with the support of national and international donors - she helped to set up small-scale fishing activities in the dam reservoir, improve farming on the remaining cultivatable land. She supported farmers with the paperwork to secure their new land. She then extended the work to education and health care for women and children. Through all these efforts she mobilized a great number of men and women from the village to assist her in helping villagers to help themselves and improve the life of the resettled communities.

Today families have new livelihoods and better prospects through education. The remaining forests are being conserved and the ecosystems restored.

Health motivates positive action

The Environmental and Social Studies Group, a Mexican NGO is one of the 2012 Equator Prize winners. The case is described in: United Nations Development Programme. 2013. Environmental and Social Studies Group, Mexico. Equator Initiative Case Study Series. New York, NY. Based on the information from this publication we hereby try to tell the story not from the perspective of the prize winning NGO, but from that of one of the project beneficiaries: a member of a women group.

Strategic Story Elements
Target audience: women from other communities that have water issues

Key point: Realizing that health of women and children is at stake motivates to take positive action

Conflict: access to clean water

Hero: Fernanda from Oxtoyahualco

Adversary: our own passive and fatalistic attitude and initial lack of interest in conservation 

Story

My name is Fernanda. I am from a Nahua family in the village of Oxtoyahualco in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. I am a mother of four. I cannot read or write. I have been a farmer all my life. My main concern always has been the well being of my family. I love the land where we live. In my great grandmother’s time it used to be full of beautiful forested valleys. There were many streams and lakes full of clear water and fields for farming and grazing.

Over the years more and more families became dependant on the land. People started to farm where you actually could not farm. The forest disappeared. Land slides occured, floods as well. The main problem became water scarcity. There were many projects of city-based NGOs active in our region to help improve the situation. But for us simple villagers it was not easy to see the benefits. We were passive, thinking this is our fate. Then one day we realized that the health of our children and ourselves was at stake. Our drinking water was not clean, and we all believed we were losing our water because we were not taking proper care of our forest. That was the moment I became active.  

In Oxtoyahualco, the fields surrounding the water spring were all private property, but since it was the community that was really in charge of them, I called the owners and asked to turn the fields over. For collective benefit, it was decided to fence them and plant trees instead of corn. It was also decided to stop cutting trees. The decisions were made by the General Assembly in the common house, with the agrarian authorities. My next step was to connect with the NGOs who were helping communities to form self-organized user groups. We mapped our area and from what we knew from our elders and other communities we made work plans for our watershed. We organized workshops and trainings, we had technical support from the NGOs and could submit project proposals to them to fund technical improvements. 

Now we are improving the forest again, we engage in a series of alternative livelihoods and manage the water supply. The projects we have built have been decided within the Assembly, here in the community, that way we decide among all. The technicians from the NGOs do come, but they do not decide for us. They say “Where do you want to build?” and where we decide it gets done. We go to the very place where we think it should be built and we all look at it, if it is a good place or not. That way we all talk about it, and since we know where our water springs are, we can make those decisions among all in an assembly with a majority of ejidatarios. I do all the extra work because of my children. And by doing so I educate myself.  

To change others you have to change yourself

In 2002 The Suledo Forest Community won the Equator Prize. The project is described in the UNDP collection of casestudies (United Nations Development Programme. 2012. Suledo Forest Community, Tanzania. Equator Initiative Case Study Series. New York, NY).  Here we tell the story based on the the case study and the accompanying video. We choose to tell it from the perspective of a forester who shares his experience with his peers.

Strategic Story Elements
Target audience: other foresters

Key point: to allow for community forest management means that we ourselves have to change from policing to advising

Conflict: illegal logging and poaching

Hero: Shaban Luono

Adversary: local communities that need and want to use the forest 

My name is Shaban Luono, Government Forest District Officer in Miombo in the South West of Tanzania. 25 Years ago there were not many people here. This was an area of dry forest with many different species. Masai used to trek each year through the forest with their cattle, they used the fruits of the trees and took care of the forest as  unofficial custodians.

Because of all the political and economic changes in the country, new people arrived to look for farmland and settlements. They also roamed through the forest and logging and poaching started. Our government then reacted with legislation: the new forest law forbids all activities in the Miombo forest both by Masai and newcomers. We in the forest service were tasked with implementation and enforcement. I came from Arusha to Miombo and with my colleagues I had to patrol this huge area. Right from the start it put us in the position from us against the communities. We the protectors of the forest against them the enemies of the forest. In hindsight I cannot say we were very succesful: logging and poaching even increased.

The communities needed the forest. They formed Environmental Committees to prove the government they could manage the forest themselves. Each Committee laid out by laws for the sustainable use of the forest. They came to our office to have us approve these by laws according to the proper legal procedures. It took us many meetings in our office and in the villages to get over our suspicions and our prejudices that only we knew what was good for the forest. Slowly we started trusting them, because through our meetings in the villages we had seen some promising good practices. Finally we accepted the by laws. And we realized that in the process we ourselves also had changed: from policing, to advising. Once we left the policing role the villagers even took more responsibilities for sustainable forest management.

Today instead of harrassing people we are now friends with them, we come in our cars to check the state of the forest, have a quiet tea in the village, answer questions of the Environment Committee and advise on management issues. The enmity is gone. Our job became a lot more satisfactory. Illegal logging and poaching is under control.

Buddhist values as basis for change

In 2012 The Cambodian community forest project won the Equator Prize. In the UNDP publication (United Nations Development Programme. 2012. Monks Community Forest, Cambodia. Equator Initiative Case Study Series. New York, NY). the case is documented. Based on this account and with quotes form their video, we retell it here as a real story. 

Strategic Story Elements

Target audience: other conservationists 

Key point: when you base your communication on religious values, you can motivate and engage communities in positive action to change their habits

Conflict: ignorance about illegal wildlife trade and logging being against Buddhist values

Hero: Venerable Bin Salut

Adversary: poor villagers that are not interested in nature conservation 

The deep and wild jungles of North West Cambodia used to be full of many different wild animals, huge trees and wonderful plants. The few small villages close to the forest were engaged in rice farming and collected from the forest what they needed. 

Civil war, population growth, refugees and poverty changed village life and caused more and more pressure on the forest and its wildlife. When Bin Salut, a simple monk in orange cloths, arrived in the area to take care of the small temple, he made it also his mission to rescue wild animals and protect the forest. He started for example to buy snakes from farmers who wanted to sell them as food on the market. He then released them back into the wild. He tried to raise awareness about nature in his preachings: “Our forest will continue to be lost if we monks don’t try to preserve it or try to help spread Buddha’s teaching among our prople to appreciate the forest value. Preserving the forest is very important as it absorbs toxics like carbon and produces clean air that we breath to live healthy lives.”

Villagers were sceptical in the beginning. They did not care about nature. They even thought the new monk was going to set up his own business and wanted to become the owner of the forest. But the humble monk kept preaching and practiced what he preached: “Buddhism plays a very important role in preserving the nature. When Lord Buddha was still alive, he used trees and caves as his lodging to obtain enlightenment. In this way he taught us to love nature and animals.” Then one by one his messages hit home and he won the trust of the people. Under his leadership villagers started to patrol the forest against loggers and to protect the forest products, such as mushrooms, nuts, etc.

Now six villages help to conserve the forests and its wildlife, they realize they rely on forest products to support their families. Harvesting mushrooms adds income to their rice production. And they now earn more in a year than the average Cambodian. At the same time they take care of the source of their income.

Listening leads to the right intervention

COMACO is a recipient of the Equator Prize. The award has a database with case studies of all its winning projects. Even when a few are accompanied by a video, they are not easy to read. Telling their success story could help. In four parts (beginning, middle, climax, end) the story of COMACO could be as follows:

Strategic Story Elements

Target audience: other conservationists 

Key point: when you listen to poachers you find out the motives for current and desired behaviour, you then can help the people and by helping them, you help wildlife.

Conflict: poachers 

Hero: conservationist Dale Louis 

Adversary: poachers and our own ignorance about the reasons for poaching. 

The hot beautiful Zambia Luanga River Valley houses an amazing diversity of wildlife, especially elephants, hippos, crocodiles, zebras, wildebeest and other large animals. It has been so for ages. 

But as time goes by and with a growing population the pressures on nature and wildlife increased. The areas became rife with poachers that threatened the natural world more and more. Dale Louis of Wildlife Conservation Society, a passionate blond conservation biologist tried everything in his power to stop these negative trends of illegal hunting. For many years he and his devoted team of rangers tried to enforce the law by patroling the enormous area and trying to catch the wicked poachers. But somehow - as if the devil played with it - they alsmost always came too late. 

One day far out in the field, waiting in an ambush, he suddenly realized that so far they had been trying to outsmart the poacher, without any success: “We never got out of our cars to talk to them, question them, who they were and why they poached.” He and his colleagues decided to do just that and entered villages and the small and simple homes of the people. What they found out was that the men were poaching because they and their families were starving. So Dale and his colleagues decided that to help the animals they had to help the people. They started Community Marketing for Conservation to transform poachers into farmers. 

Poachers trade guns for new skills, seeds and a guaranteed income from their farming. Now after a few years the elephants, wildebeest, crocodiles and other species are recovering. Communities are not anymore starving but living from farming with the help of the cooperative. 

Tiger Team Story

Stories stick better than reports or factsheets. Linda Kartika (from the Ministry of Forestry of Indonesia) was for three months an intern at WildTeam in Bangladesh as part of her Wageningen University training. From the footage she shot in Bangladesh she made this video in which she tells the story of what she has learned about tiger conservation and strategic communication.

A story sticks better than a case study

Taste the power of storytelling on the Media Impact site to brand their work. Soon a CEC e-learning course on story telling to trigger action for biodiversity will be on line on: www.frogleaps.org. Now compare this story with the same content now packaged as an case study or informative brochure:

PCI Media Impact is a pioneer and world leader in Entertainment-Education and communications for social change. For more than 25 years, we have advanced the well-being of vulnerable populations by improving knowledge, shifting locally-determined attitudes and changing behaviors toward critical social issues. Working in a capacity- building model, through our My Community approach, our unique strategy of storytelling allows millions to live healthier lives, sustainably, and in harmony with their natural world.

Together with our partners around the world, PCI Media Impact has produced more than 5,000 episodes of 100 serial television and radio productions reaching more than one billion people in over 45 countries.

Our programs have increased knowledge, changed attitudes and facilitated behavior change on some of the most pressing issues of our time, including violence against women, HIV/AIDS prevention, sustainable development, reproductive health, human rights and democracy. Currently, Media Impact is working in more than 30 countries throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Africa, Asia and the United States.

We work using Entertainment-Education (E-E). E-E, sometimes called Edutainment, is the process of purposely designing and implementing a media message both to entertain and educate, in order to increase audience members’ knowledge about an educational issue, create favorable attitudes and change overt behavior.

Even in written form a story is more sticky:

In 1984 the Father of Entertainment-Education Miguel Sabido, met with our founder and Indira Ghandi to launch a program in India. The program, Hum Log, was a success: it soared to the top of entertainment charts and drew a regular viewing audience of more than 50 million people. It also began to shift family planning practices. We knew we were on to something, and so continued producing radio and television programs to promote family planning throughout Asia and Africa.

During one of these programs a young character, Shandi, asked a question on the radio drama Taru that echoed throughout Bihar, India: “Why don’t I have a birthday?” Little girls in Bihar didn’t celebrate their birthdays. Only boys did. Over the course of a few weeks, Shandi, aided by a social worker, Taru, planned and hosted her birthday party. Soon after the broadcasts, girls throughout Bihar began to celebrate their birthdays.

But the change didn’t stop there. Birthdays were symbolic of other inequalities – who went to school, who ate first, who received the best medical care. These things started changing too. An entire village decided it was

time for all little girls to receive an education, so that year little girls got to go with their brothers to school. Each of our 100 programs has a Shandi, someone who asks the seemingly simple question that transforms a society.

Eye in eye with the tiger

Looking the tiger in the eye. Seeing nature on film can still give you a powerful  experience: this is almost the last shot of a short video by Erlinda Kartika about the release of a stray tiger in Sumatra.

Sundarban Mayer Moton (Motherlike Sundarbans) campaign theme song

Music can be a powerful means to get attention, touch emotions and convey a message. Wildteam of Bangladesh uses in this video a message strengthening the relationship between the mangroves of the Sundarbans and the people living in the communities around the area. The lyrics are about the beautiful forest and the many natural treasures it gives a home to. It aims to generate awareness about the importance of nature and create a basis of support among villagers for tiger conservation. It is a good example of the IUCN CEC campaign of Love! Not Loss. The CEC campaign aims to make conservationists aware the power of a positive approach to conservation when addressing the general public. 

Ecosystem services made visible

A picture says more than a thousand words. These pictures from a recent DEFRA publication are extremely helpful to explain ecosystem services to non-experts. They do so by making the abstract concept of ecosystem services concrete and visible by splitting them up in small parts that make much more sense to 'normal' people.

To Control Floods, The Dutch Turn to Nature for Inspiration by Cheryl Katz: Yale Environment 360

A picture says more than 1000 words. 
To Control Floods, The Dutch Turn to Nature for Inspiration by Cheryl Katz: Yale Environment 360
For the slide show click here
For the article click here

Chasing Ice OFFICIAL TRAILER

Read Ed Gillespie's blog post on this film and campaign, Can't wait to see the movie!

How to introduce adaptation?

A nice video by Arturo Curiel and Guadalupe Garibay Chavez to introduce the issue of climate change adaptation in capacity development workshops for municipal policymakers in the state of Jalisco.

Biodiversity stamps

Postage stamps are a good way for mainstreaming biodiversity. At least this is the opinion of Metsähallitus Natural Heritage Services . In cooperation with the Finnish Postal Services they just brought out a new stamp in their series of national parks. I wonder what the impact is in the age of internet. On the web it is easy to find a few more examples from other countries. The use of logo of the IYB makes at least some sense to me.

Timeline as tool

Timelines work even better than maps, especially when they work with animation. I realized this not only through the popularity of the new face book look but also when a friend of mine made me aware of maps of war. One application on this site shows 5,000 years history of religions in 90 seconds. Others clarify details of major wars or geopolitical tensions. I wonder what this might do for biodiversity.

Adapting to climate change: people and ecosystems

Using nature to help people adapt to the changing climate. A video produced by IUCN Meso America. Good use of visuals to explain abstract concepts such as ecosystem based adaptation! But how strategic is this video? The intended audience is government decision makers. The pay off is a call to invest in legislation and treaties. Of course also needed, but much more needed are a number of specific behaviour changes in urban planning, agriculture, water management etc. They now seem to get the subconscious message "lets wait for new law and international conventions"! Maybe IUCN should make different pay offs for different audiences, just a small intervention at the end of the video. Or stop the video before the pay off and ask audiences to come up with what changes they think they should make in their sector. There are new resources to help us to be more strategic in climate change communication. And if you have twenty minutes, watch this video by George Marshall.

Protected area communication

Communication can be a waste of money. I saw this poster of African Parks on Schiphol airport. The pictures of species attract attention, thats good. The text is in Dutch and asks for support, but the telephone number is in South Africa - no country code. And the web address is difficult to remember when you go down the escalator. In other words: what is the point?