Fostering coexistence between people and wildlife during global crises – insights and learnings

On Tuesday 11 June, UK Aid Match grant holder ZSL held an event ‘Fostering coexistence between people and wildlife during global crises’ as part of their Science and Conservation series. They were joined by other UK Aid Match grant holders Ripple Effect, Tusk and WWF, who together shared highlights from their conservation projects and discussed important lessons to help shape future project design and implementation in this area.

Highlights from the projects

Since 2020, UK Aid Match grant holder ZSL has been supporting 4 communities in Kenya and Nepal to coexist with wildlife by increasing livelihood opportunities, building financial resilience and improving relationships with wildlife authorities. 

Climate change can have a devastating effect on people and wildlife living in these areas – drought and erratic rainfall can lead to poor harvests and livestock deaths, and the lack of water can cause animals to venture onto community land, destroying crops and killing people’s cattle, goats and chickens. This can bring communities and wildlife into conflict and worsens relations with protected area authorities.

ZSL trained nearly 300 people in human-wildlife conflict mitigation techniques, such as building predator-proof livestock enclosures. They also established community meetings with protected area and local government authorities, providing a safe space for expressing concerns and suggesting solutions to conflicts. Over 400 people are now active members of a community banking scheme, helping to increase household financial management, and another 400 people have been trained in new enterprises including vegetable farming, beekeeping and shopkeeping.

“I have learnt that the environment including trees are very beneficial to us. Even the way I relate with wildlife has changed. I now know they are of great benefit.”

A woman stood smiling while holding a goat

Photograph: A project participant with her goats

Ripple Effect and Tusk along with their partner Uganda Conservation Foundation, have recently completed a three-year ‘Living with wildlife’ project which supported people and wildlife to live side by side around Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda. 

Similar to ZSL’s project, crises such as drought, flooding, and COVID-19 had an affect on project activities. Flooding displaced wildlife, like hippos, from their natural habitats, pushing them onto cultivated lands and increasing human-wildlife conflict. COVID-19 led to market closures, leaving farmers unable to sell their produce, and the disappearance of tourism collapsed the local economy, causing a spike in poaching within the park.

Despite these challenges, by the end of the project, 37,000 farmers had improved food security and livelihood opportunities. A further 260 young people benefited from apprenticeship and vocational courses, which were set up to provide alternative income from illegal activities such as poaching and fishing which can lead to more conflict. Community members and school children were offered trips to the park so they could learn the importance of protecting endangered species and advocate for the protection of wildlife in their respective villages.

“…After the park visit, I came back to my village and encouraged poachers to stop poaching wildlife. Three poachers have since stopped poaching after following my advice”.

WWF’s Land for Life project is improving the livelihoods and wellbeing of Maasai communities in Kenya and Northern Tanzania through sustainable enterprises, whilst protecting and recovering wildlife in critical corridors in the area.

Over the past few years, with the uncertainty of climate change and the rise of COVID-19, people were struggling to make a living with some resorting to unsustainable activities such as wildlife poaching, cutting down trees for firewood, and encroaching on important wildlife corridors. 

WWF and their partners African People & Wildlife and South Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO) are supporting 27,000 people to thrive with nature through community owned conservation. Maasai households transitioned from traditional corrals (enclosures for livestock) to predator-proof Living Walls which protect their livestock from carnivore attacks at night. These Living Walls involve planting Commiphora trees (or similar) in a circle around the perimeter of a livestock enclosure and secure with chain-link fencing.

Communities have been supported to understand sustainable rangeland management, learning to remove invasive plant species, allowing crucial habitats to regenerate. Further, the introduction of drought-tolerant sunflower cultivation and beekeeping has been successful in creating new economic opportunities.

“Nature has an amazing way of coming back, if you give it time and space”

A man stood infront of his living wall boma (trees and a natural fence)

Photograph: A Maasai community member stood next to his Living Wall

Key lessons and recommendations from UK Aid Match grant holders

Listen to the full event recording.

Towards the end of last year UK Aid Match Performance and Risk Manager Emma Hayward and Fiduciary Risk Manager Peter Mwita visited three UK Aid Match grant holders in Tanzania, to see how their projects were progressing.

The team received warm welcomes from Transform Trade (formerly Traidcraft Exchange), Right to Play and WWF, and the communities they are supporting.

Below is a short write-up of the visits.

Transform Trade are working with partners Transform Trade Tanzania and Tanzania Gender and Sustainable Energy Network (TANGSEN) in Kisarawe and Rufiji Districts, on a three-year UK Aid Match project. They are supporting over 2,000 vulnerable households to improve natural resource management and establish viable small businesses.

During the visit, the team met communities in Kisarawe and Rufiji to observe trainings and learn about the environmental and economic benefits of clean cookstoves and honey and sunflower production. One of the producer groups established by the project has been growing sunflowers, and recently began adding value to their seed harvests by producing sunflower oil, bringing them a potential profit of £220 from twelve bags of seeds. Another group has been producing honey, which could eventually earn them £160 a year. In both cases, these are new streams of income for the group members, which will support them to meet their families’ basic needs and invest in further enterprise activities. The team met a number of supply chain actors at the trainings, such as seed suppliers, honey and seed buyers and District Agricultural Extension Officers. This really showed the collaborative approach that the project is taking, and how these connections are helping to improve market access for smallholder farmers.

The project is particularly focused on supporting income generating opportunities for women and people living with disabilities. At the beginning of the project, Transform Trade faced challenges with recruitment of women due to cultural and religious beliefs that do not support women’s involvement in economic activities. The project team has been working closely with communities to challenge social and gender norms and have now exceeded the original target for women’s participation in the project. One woman who has been active in the project told the team that through producing clean cookstoves she has now been able to make a little money to invest in her own business. In addition, the time she is saving on cooking and collecting firewood means she has more time to work towards her personal goals.

Transform Trade are also strengthening their approach to disability inclusion by disseminating a behaviour change campaign across communities and recruiting more people with disabilities to work on the project.

A group of people demonstrating how to use beeswax to attract honey bees

Photograph: A bee-keeping group set up by Transform Trade demonstrates how to use beeswax to attract honey bees to newly installed hives. Credit: Transform Trade.

Right to Play are implementing a three-year UK Aid Match project with partners Right to Play Tanzania and African Inland Church Tanzania (AICT) in the Mara region of Tanzania. The project aims to improve educational opportunities for girls in grades 5-7, through play-based approaches to learning.

The Save Her Seat project is building on the successful Enhancing Quality and Inclusive Education (EQIE) project, which focused on improving learning outcomes for girls and boys in grades 1-4. By extending play-based learning into grades 5-7, the project will ensure quality, inclusive education through the full primary education cycle.

While the project had only recently started when the visit took place, the team were able to see positive progress so far. The project had recruited 50% of its target number of teachers and had already reached more children than originally planned. Some of the teachers in the project are already trained in play-based learning approaches and acting as champion teachers to help and support new recruits. The project team also shared some very interesting insights into gender and disability norms in the project context, as well as other barriers to girls’ education, which the project will address.

Whilst the team were unable to visit the project site due to logistical challenges (the project areas are very remote), they participated in games and experiential learning activities to help them understand the play-based learning approach being implemented.

Children stood with their hands on their head playing a game, wearing green and blue striped school uniforms, amongst a backdrop of trees

Photograph: Children taking part in a game at school. Credit: Right to Play.

In the Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania (SOKNOT) region the land is very dry, meaning livelihood opportunities for Maasai communities, who depend on livestock-rearing for survival, are very limited. These communities are roaming further and further afield to find food and water for their cattle, often encroaching on important wildlife corridors and conservation areas, which has caused conflict and tension between communities and wildlife authorities. WWF are working with partners WWF Kenya, WWF Tanzania, Tanzania People and Wildlife (TPW), and South Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO) on their three-year Land for Life project to improve the livelihoods and wellbeing of these vulnerable Maasai communities whilst recovering natural resources and protecting critical wildlife corridors in the area.

During the visit – on the Tanzanian side – the team met with local government stakeholders and witnessed the good relationships that have developed between WWF, TPW and district and village level officials. The team heard stories from many village leaders about how a combined effort from all these stakeholders was supporting their communities to earn an income from climate-smart agriculture and other small businesses, manage incidents of human/wildlife conflict and restore rangelands so they could graze their cattle sustainably.

Some of the local people explained that the introduction of drought-tolerant sunflower cultivation and beekeeping had been successful in creating new economic opportunities and managing human/wildlife conflict, since sunflowers and bees act as a deterrent to some wildlife.

The team also visited a Maasai household who have built a ‘living wall’ to protect their livestock from predator attacks at night. The family said that this has not only reduced livestock losses but brought social and economic benefits, such as allowing family members to sleep better at night, giving them more energy to engage in business and farming activities during the day. In the area surrounding the family’s homestead TPW have so far restored 2,054 HA of rangeland, which has increased both fodder (livestock food) availability and the potential for controlled grazing in the area (important for the protection of other natural resources).

A man wearing pink and white clothing stood in front of a wire fencing and cut branches.

Photograph: A member of the Maasai community standing outside his living wall boma. Credit: WWF-UK.

Thank you to all the organisations and individuals involved with these visits. We really appreciated all your time and continued hard work.

In September, Performance and Risk Managers, Patrick Douglas and Tom Barton for UK Aid Match visited Nepal to see four UK Aid Match projects in progress and offer their support. These were World Child Cancer, Practical Action, United World Schools and ZSL.

In detail

In Kathmandu, World Child Cancer – an international children’s charity dedicated to addressing global inequalities around childhood cancer care – are working with partners Together Against Childhood Cancer (TACC) and Ramesh Gupta Memorial Trust (RGMT), along with Kanti Children’s Hospital, on a three-year project to improve paediatric oncology outcomes in the capital, as well as in provincial hospitals in Pokhara and Nepalgunj.

Over the three-day visit Tom and Patrick had the privilege of visiting the partners and Kanti Children’s Hospital (where the work is being implemented by TACC staff), meeting doctors and nurses, hospital directors, and the patients and families receiving life-saving cancer treatment, as well as financial and psychosocial support.

Despite working in a sector that was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and experiencing a shortage of staff in nurses (across the Kanti Hospital departments), it was encouraging to be able to see the progress they have been making to strengthen the data systems and build the capacity of their staff, resulting in an improvement in care received by children with cancer.

Group of medical staff behind banner with words Training on early warning signs and symptoms of childhood cancer. World Child Cancer
Picture taken during training sessions in Dhulikhel designed to orient primary health care providers of the concepts and realities of childhood cancer and help them recognize signs and refer.
Match team members Patrick and Tom stand next to banner and oncology staff saying 'Nutritional food exhibition for paediatric oncology'
Oncologists at Kanti Children's hospital show Match team a table with food and drink to demonstrate nutritional considerations for children with cancer
Pictures taken at Kanti Children’s Hospital. Oncology doctors and hospital nutritionists organised a number of tents and stalls displaying ways of preparing meals, food groups and suggested diets and meals specifically designed for parents of children with cancer.

Practical Action is an international development group focused on working with communities to develop lasting and locally owned solutions to climate challenges and gender inequality. This UK Aid Match project is being delivered in remote hills: in the Dang District – Dangisaran and Shantinagar municipalities -, Rolpa District – Rumtigadi, Triveni, Thawang and Pariwartan -, and Rukum East District – Bhume and Puthauttarganga. The organisation is working with partners, Development Concern Society (DECOS), to build climate-adaptive farming opportunities and improved livelihoods for women and marginalised groups.

Whilst the project had only recently started when the visit took place, the UK Aid Match team were delighted to be able to meet communities who had been selected to participate. Work had started in building water and market infrastructures, and planting the climate field school. Whilst there, they also spoke with the local government who had been involved with the project from the beginning, when selection had taken place of the most marginalised communities.

Group of women outside in field move cow dung for manure. Photo credit Practical Action
Dang Valley women being taught how to use compost from cow dung. Practical Action
Safeguarding poster is shown to a group of women by UK Aid Match Performance and Risk Manager Patrick
Community members are shown and talked through a safeguarding poster by UK Aid Match’s Patrick Douglas. Practical Action

United World Schools – an organisation whose mission is to improve life opportunities for the poorest children living in remote and marginalised communities through education – are working in the rural districts of Gulmi, Sankhuwasabha, Taplejung, Morang and Chitwan to deliver a three-year primary education project, focused on increasing enrolment and retention of children living there. Our team met their team in Kathmandu and gained a good understanding on the progress they had made so far – as well as the challenges they are facing in developing education facilities in such remote locations.

International conservation charity, ZSL are working with Himalayan Nature and Mithila Wildlife Trust to develop the Stewardship and Rural Development (STEWARD) model for poor and marginalised ‘frontier communities’ living alongside protected areas. These communities rely heavily on natural resources for subsistence and livelihoods and are vulnerable to illegal activities that offer a fast and high value return. This represents a major challenge for sustainable development and conservation.

The aim of this project is to improve the livelihood prospects and economic wellbeing of vulnerable people and to protect high-value wildlife in two critical conservation areas: the Terai Arc Landscape and Tsavo Conservation Area.

Thank you to all who showed us around. We look forward to sharing further your achievements and impact.

Women in field of crops being shown something by trainer
Photo credit ZSL