Case Study
How conservation is helping bring peace to conflict-affected South Sudan
Fauna & Flora has been working in South Sudan since 2011, providing vital support to improve conservation and livelihoods.
In October 2024, Colombia hosted the global biodiversity conference, COP16. The conference aimed to highlight and address some of the biggest drivers of nature loss worldwide. The theme of the event, and a brilliantly simple way to understand what we humans must aspire to, was ‘peace with nature’.
In the run-up to COP16, we explored how peace with nature can be achieved around the world – profiling the communities and conservationists who are making it happen.
What do we mean by peace with nature?
Achieving peace through nature? Reducing abuse of nature? Living harmoniously with nature? The answer is: any and all of these. For Fauna & Flora, ensuring peace with nature takes many forms. For example:
Mountain gorilla. © photocech / Adobe Stock
Fostering cross-border collaboration
Protecting mountain gorillas by creating a shared sense of purpose between countries where political tensions are otherwise high.
Wildlife rangers setting up a camera trap in Southern National Park. © Fauna & Flora
Building bridges
Defusing conflict in South Sudan’s flagship national park by securing collective commitment to a shared conservation goal.
Carpathian sheepdog puppy. © Daniel Mîrlea / Fauna & Flora
Reducing conflict
Finding creative solutions to reduce conflict between farmers and crop-raiding chimpanzees in Uganda, or livestock owners and large carnivores in Romania.
One of the 15 Burmese peacock softshell hatchlings. © Fauna & Flora
Turning poachers into protectors
Helping to turn turtle poachers into turtle protectors and hunters into forest guardians.
Fishing catch on Kenyan coast. © JABRUSON / Fauna & Flora
Restoring the ocean
Supporting coastal communities from Cambodia and Cabo Verde to Türkiye and Tanzania in ensuring sustainable use of previously overexploited marine resources.
Beekeeping in Principe. © Laura Benitez / Fauna & Flora
Promoting sustainable livelihoods
Developing sustainable alternatives to destructive forms of livelihood activities, from beekeeping in Príncipe to gibbon-friendly coffee production in Myanmar.
Sustainable conservation through local solutions
All these nature-positive initiatives have something crucial in common: they are locally led, community-driven routes to peace with nature and, therefore, more likely to endure. A newly commissioned report indicates that locally led conservation projects also have greater impact. But what does this work look like in practice?
Case Study
Putting Türkiye's fisher communities front and centre to protect and restore the ocean
How Fauna & Flora and local partner AKD supported the recovery of the marine habitat in Türkiye’s Gökova Bay.
Case Study
How technology is achieving harmony between people and elephants in Guinea
How do you protect elephants from poachers, and protect villagers from crop-raiding elephants? With the help of satellite tracking collars.
News
Local voices key to success of 30x30 nature goal
At COP16, Fauna & Flora is urging decision-makers to put more power in local hands. A new research report indicates that locally-led conservation projects have greater impact.
What we wanted from COP16
The pace of COP16 negotiations did not reflect the urgency of the nature and climate crisis we are facing. Negotiators left some of the most critical issues until last and inevitably ran out of time. With the window of opportunity to take action closing rapidly, stopping the clock before agreement could be reached was the last thing we needed.
Money unlocked and directed to local organisations
The action required to halt and reverse nature loss has a high price tag and there are still big questions about where the finance will come from. Securing agreement on a thorough and unambiguous resource mobilisation strategy is essential. Alongside more money being unlocked, for example, to meet the 2025 target of $20 billion per annum from developed countries and others, there is an urgent need to focus on how finance will get to Indigenous Peoples and local communities on the conservation front line.
Quality as well as quantity at centre of 30×30
Target 3, also known as ’30×30′, was centre stage and we wanted delegates to keep in mind the small print too. This aim to set aside 30% of the world’s land and sea for nature by 2030 must not be realised at the expense of the human rights of local people. This message, at the heart of the global agreement, must not be lost. Furthermore, evidence shows that initiatives that are locally led and community-driven are more likely to endure – this is key to effective and equitable area-based conservation. The world needs to support and promote the really effective conservation impact that happens in small, local areas, not just focus on the number of hectares inside lines on maps.
Real action on climate and nature synergies
There must be further commitment to integrate nature and climate actions to secure long-term benefits to people and the planet. This means getting real about aligning national plans for climate and biodiversity, in order to optimise efficiency and resourcing, and actively addressing any trade-offs. And, at an international level, the future climate and biodiversity COPs must ensure they are fully aligned – with decision-makers setting the tone by emphasising the key role of nature in tackling climate change.
© Kate West / Fauna & Flora
In the marine paradise of Raja Ampat, Indonesia, at the epicentre of the Coral Triangle, Fauna & Flora has worked closely with Yayasan Nazaret Papua, an Indigenous People’s NGO, to establish a customary protection zone for dugongs and their seagrass habitat. Our local partner is seen here undertaking seagrass identification training with the local community.
Active leadership of local actors on biodiversity credits
Biodiversity credits could play a key role in resource mobilisation. We wanted iscussions at COP16 to help move us towards a robust and credible market, which champions local conservation leadership, upholds human rights and has a significant and positive impact on biodiversity. It is important that market actors are pushed to enable local stakeholders to be decision-makers regarding the areas, methods and species used in biocredit projects while guarding against the risk that the emerging biocredits market serves to entrench top-down, externally driven conservation values and practices.
Renewed collective resolve and focus
This was the first biodiversity COP since new nature targets were agreed two years ago as key steps to halting and reversing the biodiversity crisis. COP16 assessed how progress towards these 2030 targets is going, but the urgency of the situation demands that we keep moving forward, not looking backwards. There were significant items on the agenda, like the monitoring framework, which needed to be agreed upon. But equally importantly, we wanted everyone to come out of the COP with a refreshed sense that, together, we can tackle this crisis. With only a few years to go to meet the 2030 targets, the collective mindset needed to be action-focused.
Scaled-up business action
The private sector has a critical role to play in unlocking resources, creating innovative approaches and scaling solutions to tackle the biodiversity crisis. At COP16 we hoped to see an increase in the number of businesses committed to embedding nature into their sustainability ambitions; inclusion of the private sector within national targets for biodiversity; and new collaborations between business, government and civil society in order to direct financial flows to nature and conservation. We also, critically, needed to see a commitment to the meaningful inclusion of Indigenous People and local communities in private sector nature-related decision-making.
Looking beyond COP 16
While we didn’t get the step change we hoped for, negotiations have seen progress inch forward. The ‘People’s COP’ has successfully established a new Subsidiary Body for Indigenous People and local communities, which we hope will materialise into a more meaningful – and official – platform for local voices and their insights to play a role in global negotiations. We continue to push for a focus on how finance and resources can be delivered to those living closest to nature loss and climate change.
Negotiators took the opportunity to signal a desire for better alignment between the climate and nature COP processes by agreeing upon a ‘biodiversity and climate change’ decision. We urge countries to develop their roadmaps for progress – namely National Biodiversity Strategy & Action Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions – in a way that can most effectively benefit people, nature and the climate.
Nature loss is getting more and more acute every year, and – for real change to happen – we need an ‘all of society’ approach to tackling it; from the private sector, to governments, to philanthropists, to NGOs, international and local. Just as every species, big or small, plays a part in nature, we all have a part to play in saving it.
Looking beyond COP16, we cannot continue at this snail’s pace, and decisive, practical action must continue across the board. Negotiators at COP29 – the 2024 climate conference – must keep nature front and centre of the climate agenda. Governments must work harder to get their national action plans through. Developed countries must step up and deliver on finance promises. The private sector must go beyond disclosure, towards actively addressing their impacts on nature, while also providing much needed financial flows. NGOs must prioritise local knowledge, experience and human rights when delivering conservation activities. Importantly, we all need to work as quickly and effectively as possible. We do not have time to waste.
Butterflies gathering at a mineral source in Cambodia's Virachey National Park. © Jeremy Holden / Fauna & Flora
Species richness and abundance are just one of the many metrics required to measure significant and positive impact on biodiversity. Local decision-makers need to be central to the evolution of the emerging biocredits market.
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