By Rachel Groves | Development Director
There are four areas we plan to focus on in 2018:
1. "State of conservation" analysis of Leuser Ecosystem
2. Developing agreed impact measures across all projects operated by different NGOs
3. Supporting capacity at local NGOs to ensure they can focus where it is most needed
4. Instigating and joining international campaigns where necessary to prevent development in pristine forest.
Conservation Analysis on Leuser Ecosystem
1. We have recently commissioned international researchers to analyse the state of conservation work in the Leuser landscape. This will involve developing quantitative and qualitative measures to explore what is working effectively, what isn't, where there are gaps in the work and what needs to happen next. They will do this through extensive field visits and interviews with both known NGOs and small communities on the ground to understand the scope of work being undertaken. This will enable us to develop a more strategic approach to what we fund, as well as to identify where new projects are needed and bring people together to make them happen.
Return on Investment Study for prevention of deforestation work
2. A second project we have commissioned involves getting all our partner NGOs on the ground in Sumatra to agree on how they would like to measure their impact, so that we can use the same metrics for consistency. This is important because, although it's easy to say "We planted x number of trees" or "We rescued x number of orangutans", it's hard to find a way to measure "trees not chopped down because we persuaded people not to". The aim of this project is to find a more scientific approach to measure the return on investment for preventative work of this nature, so that we know the comparative benefit of time spent:
Supporting capacity at Sumatran NGOs
3. Investing money and support such as training in local NGOs where gaps in knowledge and capacity are identified. This will involve asking local NGOs to summarise their needs and suggest evidence-based solutions, we will then perform due diligence on these requests and submit them to our technical committee for consideration as to whether they funding and support should be awarded.
International Campaigns
4. We instigate and join other NGOs in international campaigns which are relevant to preserving orangutan habitat. For example we are contributing members of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil. We recognise that the sustainable certification they offer is not perfect, but feel it is worth investing our time in trying to improve the standards they require companies to adhere to, as well as lobbying them when we have evidence that a corporation is not living up to its promises.
Similarly, we have been working closely with other NGOs to try to prevent the construction of a hydroelectric dam project in the middle of the Batang Toru Forest, where the Tapanuli orangutan species was newly described in 2017. This may involve lobbying politicians, investors, as well as businesses. Again, it's sometimes hard to prove the effectiveness of these type of interventions, so we are careful to pick the battles which really matter and which we believe we can have an impact on.
Links:
By Rachel Groves | Development Director
By Helen Buckland | Director
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