When a community sets up a savings and loans group, it is building something new together: a shared fund, a set of rules, a small working group to run it. It asks people to trust one another and to trust the system they have built. When that trust breaks down, it is the response of the community that is the key, and the difference between short-term conservation and livelihoods interventions and effective, sustainable change for communities and the environment.
Read MoreStrengthening the role of communities in forest monitoring; The Inaugural Borneo Ranger Conference.
Read MoreOn a quiet shoreline in the Karimata Islands, turtle tracks crisscross the sand, some real, others carefully crafted by the hands of local monitors. These hand-drawn decoys, made to mislead poachers, reveal something deeper than surface-level conservation. They tell a story of a community that no longer watches from the sidelines but instead leads the effort to protect its land and sea.
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