This project will empower two local communities to survey and conserve wildlife in order to protect livelihoods and traditional, low-impact ways of living. It will also help train the next generation of local conservationists (13 placements on all our projects worldwide in 2017).
This project builds on our successful 2016 fundraiser, which trained 15 local conservationists, some of whom have become drivers of community-based conservation. Such community projects are the key to our planet's wild animals and places surviving into the future. If local people benefit from intact nature and can derive income from it, then "what pays, stays". Conservationists from within local communities are the critical drivers for this process, and encouraging their careers is vital.
The Biosphere Expeditions young conservationists placement programme identifies, trains & encourages early career conservationists, exposing them to research and conservation methods in action on expedition & within a co-operative setting of international volunteers and scientists, helpers and friends. Graduates of this programme in the Maldives and Oman, who have become drivers of community-based conservation efforts, will also receive support to support their efforts.
The Biosphere Expeditions young conservationists placement programme is a tried and tested model for nurturing individual careers and community-based conservation. Examples include (1) the first-ever all-Maldivian community-based reef survey programme set up by past placement recipients, (2) a Russian young conservationist now firmly established in a career as an ornithologist and (3) educational activities for school children in Kyrgyzstan about snow leopards by a past placement recipient.
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