In the Philippines, conserving unique biodiversity relies on the knowledge, innovations, and practices of indigenous and local communities who live in direct contact with nature.
Indigenous leadership
An estimated 85% of the country’s key biodiversity areas are within ancestral domains.
It’s close to midnight on a Sunday and the skies of Lagos hang dark over the glittering lights of the city’s 17.5 million residents. One of those lights is small fire in a field in Ikeja, the capital of Lagos State, where 24-year-old John stands, tossing cables into the flames.
When Ana Hernandez Diaz was given a plot of land in the province of Atlántico, on the north coast of Colombia, it looked like a barren football field. But it was a first step toward stability for her broken family. Now in the shade of trees, surrounded by green pasture, butterflies and songbirds, it’s possible to imagine renewal and even growth.
Public and private sector delegations from Ecuador, Indonesia, and the Philippines attended a workshop in Galicia, Spain, to learn about internationally recognized Galician fisheries governance systems in order to replicate best practices in their own countries.
In Southern Belize, you can walk through Central America’s last unbroken stretch of broadleaf forest. This key link in the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, which acts as a natural land bridge between North and South America, hosts one of the world’s richest assemblages of biodiversity.
The Karoo, in South Africa, is a harsh environment in which to make a living out of agriculture—the area is mostly devoid of surface water. Its name is derived from the Khoisan word meaning “land of thirst”.
The land was traditionally used by pastoralists but drought, overgrazing and predation by wild animals made this activity precarious. Predators were kept in check by fencing, traps, poisons and hunting. South Africa is one of the most fenced places on Earth, with huge impacts on biodiversity and animal movements.
Paraguay is one of the top 10 largest beef exporters in the world and has the potential to double its reach over the next decade. But as demand for sustainable livestock practices increases, the country will need to overcome environmental challenges linked to raising livestock if it wants to reach its export potential.
The shy and elusive neotropical otter is widely distributed in Latin America, but it is hardly spotted. When Manuel Chávez and his team discovered that a specimen was captured by one of their river camera traps in the depths of the Sierra Tarahumara canyons, in northwestern Mexico, they were thrilled.
For thousands of years, Cambodian farmers have tilled their lands according to the rhythms of the annual monsoon. Now, as the region faces changing rainfall driven by the onset of global climate change, the Southeast nation is taking action to prepare and adapt.
The mighty Khmer Empire
The Bajo Guapi and Río Guají Afro-Colombian communities live in the Chocó Bioregion, a major biodiversity hotspot. Their collective territories thrive due to their strong cohesion and robust self-governance.
Acts of violence from encroaching outsiders, and the new economic and social dynamics that they introduce, have led to displacement, which in turn weakens ancestral practices that conserve biodiversity and sustain life in these communities.
