Local communities and indigenous peoples are key stewards of the critical landscapes where the interest of our work is. Integrating local people in conservation helps the people understand their own problems and participate in solving them. In areas where we work communities are over 75% nature dependent, and therefore without good functioning ecosystems their livelihoods are broken. These communities are depended of key forests, wetlands, water bodies for fishing and of course land for agriculture.
- What Tree Talk plus is doing with communities
Conserving critical landscapes and ecosystems
Our main focus currently is agricultural landscapes in critical ecosystems including mountainous areas susceptible to mudslides, landslides, the identified Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) which are mainly forests water bodies, mountains and wetlands of international importance. We create awareness and building the capacity of the communities to manage their land better through among other things promoting climate smart agricultural practices, conservation agriculture.
- Improving community livelihoods
TTP establishes and helps communities manage forest enterprises as a way of ensuring community members captures a larger percent-age of their forests’ economic value. These enterprises such as beekeeping, fruits growing are aimed at improving the livelihoods of forest adjacent communities as well as maintaining healthy ecosystems, create jobs for vulnerable people, and lay the groundwork for greater investment in forest conservation and economic development of these communities. Our focus is also on encouraging small business development and the linking of our community-based enterprises with high-value domestic and international and tourists markets. We have pledged to communities everywhere we work to support local livelihoods while contributing to the creation of a transparent and legal supply of wood products through forest certification, promoting establishment of commercial tree plantation and increasing tress on farms for wood, poles and timber.
- Information empowerment
Globally there is a wide gap in information dissemination on conservation issues. Through community dialogues, radio skits, radio spot messages and talk shows, TTP disseminates information and carries out awareness campaigns at different levels on weather, the causes and effects of climate disasters and mitigation and resilience mechanisms to reduce these. Our information is meant for empowering communities with knowledge on livelihoods improvement, enterprise development, tree planting, conserving while they farm and to market produce from their enterprises.