It was a big week for Rare in Latin America.

On Thursday Jan. 28, in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, Rare opened its board meeting by celebrating the launch of its first thematic cohort,  12 Pride conservation campaigns implemented simultaneously across South America that will seek to save cloud forest and endemic species by inspiring communities and incentivizing farmers to protect local watersheds.  Rare’s Board of Directors personally met each of the campaign managers from Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru.

These are important campaigns on several levels. Each of the sites at which we’re working is considered globally critical for the preservation of at least one and often more than one limited range endemic species. Some are so rare that they get press coverage just for a sighting.

Few projects address the global extinction crisis more directly than this one.

Humans also directly benefit. These endangered endemics happen to all reside in Andean cloud forests — the “water towers” of South America. Water for millions of farmers, rural villages and even small cities originates in these forests.

I like to think of this cohort as a two-for-one deal.

Running parallel campaigns to achieve the same goal is a big switch for Rare. Rare’s partners are all committed to building public support for Andean cloud forest protection (and of course the species and water conservation that comes with it). Each will be striking deals with upstream farmers to set aside forest in exchange for technical assistance and alternative incomes that compensate them for any associated loss of income.

Rare calls these “reciprocal agreements,” and with financing from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), Rare is even going to implement the approach. At twelve sites, Rare and its partners will run Pride conservation campaigns to build general support for site conservation and the concept of reciprocal agreements.

Over time, Rare aims to see the added value of the awareness-raising campaigns. Using an experimental design including control sites is relatively unprecedented in the conservation field. GEF spends $1 billion a year on conservation projects, and this will be one of the first experimental projects they’ve ever seen.

These new campaigns represent an exciting new construct for Rare: a thematic cohort focusing on endangered endemics with an experimental design.

On Friday, our board meeting offered an opportunity to explore next year’s potential Latin America cohort theme: overfishing in the Gulf of California, with at least two potential solutions being considered. Rare has a long history working with local conservation partners in Mexico.  This potential 2011 cohort is based in part off of the learning of Rare’s Fisheries Fellows program, a collaborative pilot project implemented by Rare from 2005 to 2009 with multiple partners in the region.

Due to the island bio-geography, the abundance of endemic species, and wealth of marine mammals, many liken the Gulf of California region to the Galapagos Islands. The question is: how can Rare best help local conservationists in their efforts to reduce overfishing? More to the point, what might a thematic cohort for the Gulf look like?

To help answer this question, we heard from several key practitioners, who joined the meeting to help Rare think through how it could best add value to broader efforts in the region to save threatened fisheries:

• Tegan Hoffman, a California-based consultant from T.C. Hoffmann & Associates, shared the results of her independent analysis of opportunities to merge the Fisheries Fellows program with Pride campaigns at multiple sites. This is one way to think about a cohort.
• Jorge Torre, Executive Director of COBI, a well-regarded local NGO that specializes in community managed marine protected areas (MPAs). He is interested in exploring ways of partnering with Rare, perhaps to create a series of community MPAs, much like our plan for the Philippines.
• Laura Rodriguez, who recently joined the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) participated in this discussion as well. EDF has developed a model for incentivizing fishermen to manage their own fisheries, CatchShares, and they believe Rare could play a role developing community support and capacity on the ground for these initiatives – sort of like “reciprocal agreements” but for fishermen.
• Ana Luisa Figueroa, Director, San Pedro Martir Island Biosphere Reserve
• Peggy Turk Boyer from CEDO
• Amy Hudson Weaver from Niparaja
• Lorenzo Rosenzweig, Executive Director of the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature.

It’s far too early to make a decision, but by the end of the morning, board members had a better understanding of how Rare staff develops thematic cohorts as well as getting an update on the progress of Rare’s other regional thematic cohorts in the Coral Triangle, the Philippines, and China.

Friday afternoon was the more perfunctory side of the board meeting: committee meetings, committee reports, the official launch of RarePlanet 2.0, and a special tribute to Rare’s Mexican trustee Barbara Hernandez who recently made a significant investment to Rare’s Latin America Pride Alumni Network.

Great news! During our inspiring trip to Yunnan Province, China late last year, several of us decided to chip in and help finance the reconstruction of the Tibetan Cultural Center in Yongzhi village. Thanks to Rare trustee Ruth Yeoh, Kenneth Khaw Jin Teck, Jin Ligang and Shen Lei, we succeed in raising $3500 just before the holidays. Here’s a video “thank you note” from Mr. Ma, Rare’s Senior Advisor in Yunnan.

Brett Jenks, Rare’s CEO, blogs about his trip to Asia, where he visited Pride campaigns taking place in China and Indonesia. Follow Brett’s adventures as he witnesses local conservation efforts to protect endangered species in Asia and shares how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in this part of the world.

I started off my day with a video Skype conference call with my kids, Ben and Emma.

They took turns pulling each other off-screen and interrupting each other’s stories about homework, basketball and the weather. It’s amazing to sit in a hotel room in Kunming and have a video conference with 11- and 13-year-old children in Arlington, VA.

I couldn’t be more proud of the work the China team is doing. It was only about 11 months ago that Nigel finished hiring this team and they have already launched Rare’s globally accredited Master’s Degree in Communications for conservationists at Southwest Forestry College, built a network of hundreds of local government officials and conservation organizations and launched a first cohort of Pride campaigns addressing a range of complex and important issues.

While the campaign in Meili Snow Mountain addresses energy consumption and green building, campaigns elsewhere are doing some pretty fascinating things:

• In Hunchun Nature Reserve, the local government and Wildlife Conservation Society are saving the last remaining Siberian tigers in China.
• In Baima Snow Mountain, local villagers are learning how to reduce the consumption of fuelwood by using solar water heaters.
• In Gaoligong Mountain Nature Reserve, the campaign manager is working to increase the use of energy-efficient stoves, electric stoves, and electric rice cookers in local households.

Not bad for a start up conservation program in China in year two!

There is a long list of what’s working, and it’s great to hear it directly from our field staff after a year of dramatic change at Rare:

• Rare’s partners appreciate the careful planning of each campaign and are surprised by the rigor of our new approach to “removing barriers to behavior change.”
• The mascots of the first China campaigns are getting rave reviews.
• Partnerships with NGOs, government officials and Southwest Forestry College are all very positive, which is not always the case in these complicated and interdependent arrangements we make.
• The new Master’s degree — which is accredited by University of Texas at El Paso but taught here in Kunming, China — is well received by partners all over the country. (We had been worried that the Chinese would thumb their noses at a foreign Master’s but quite the contrary.)
• The rollout of training has been better than expected. Hearing this from the China team is a big deal given that we gave them about four months to translate the new global Master’s curriculum and then learn to teach it, when some of our staff don’t even have Master’s degrees. This was a monumental task and they deserve huge kudos for getting it done.

Not surprisingly, there is an equally long list of what we are going to improve. One of the big ones is a sense of confidence that little old Rare can make an impact in China. Our staff has watched The Nature Conservancy relocate its China headquarters to Beijing from Kunming and reallocate staff to work more on national conservation strategies.

The message from some partners has been clear: China has 1.4 billion people. What are a handful of Pride campaigns going to do?

It’s a fair question, but I’d argue that most of China’s biodiversity lies in the southwest where high mountains, diverse climates and cultures and relatively low populations are not only conducive to Rare’s approach but, in fact, necessitate it . The Chinese have a saying:

“The mountains are high and the emperor is far, far away.”

The fact is, like many multinational companies, we are learning that you can’t succeed in China simply by having support in Beijing.

Many of the threats to nature in the most biologically diverse areas are local. Those threats are cultural and they have to do with local forestry, home construction, fishing, water usage, agriculture, etc. National reforms don’t make the desired impact unless municipal leaders act on and enforce them.

What does work in China is the scaling of locally-proven methods. The government, once it finds something that works, has no problem rolling out solutions far beyond the scope of any NGO I’ve ever seen. So if Rare can get a few models working in the coming years and train the local leadership needed to replicate them, the bet we’re making is that the municipal and even provincial governments will take them and run.
But confidence will only come in time.

Other things we’re going to fix:

• We need to improve the project management skills of our staff and campaign partners. These projects are increasingly complex. It’s not easy coordinating NGOs and government offices to provide new skills and financing while running social marketing programs to mobilize communities, especially when you expect results in just a few years. Some of what we’re doing is unprecedented and the management skills to make it work must be newly developed and then taught throughout our network.
• Priority-setting: As we consider what environmental threats to prioritize and what local conservation solutions we aim to roll out next year, our team is hearing an array of partner and expert voices, each with their own strong opinion about where we should focus. It’s great to be in demand, but we have some difficult decisions to make.
• Mastering a new way of working. The China team has a new curriculum, plus they’re rolling out a much-revised version of the traditional Pride campaign; and because Rare is growing and taking seriously global quality control, they have to grapple with new systems for reporting and the expectations of social media use and online storytelling. It’s a lot to manage for any team, much less a group of five in Kunming. While I know they’re going to do it, I am not sure they know it yet.

>>Brett’s Slideshow

Brett Jenks, Rare’s CEO, blogs about his trip to Asia, where he visited Pride campaigns taking place in China and Indonesia. Follow Brett’s adventures as he witnesses local conservation efforts to protect endangered species in Asia and shares how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in this part of the world.

Sad day — time to leave the mountain.

Even though Rare’s board chair Wendy Paulson had advised me against the donkeys and mules, which she thinks are terribly uncomfortable, the group decided to ride them up the steep climb to the mountain pass, after which we walked the three hours down to the cars. Given the eight-hour drive we had after the hike, it was a good idea to save a little energy.

Ligang and I get prepared for our lazy ramble up the mountain. An hour later we were happy to be off the mules and a quarter of the way to our destination. (photo by Nigel Sizer) 

But the donkeys made for some embarrassing photos, and, for the most part, we’re pretty uncomfortable putting all this stress on the donkeys. The upside is that it brings good revenue for the local communities who maintain the donkeys and provide the guide service.

Mid-hike, Ligang, Lei, and Shiyang stop for a final Yak butter tea and some warmth by a local villager’s fire.

Three hours of hiking and eight hours of driving later and we were back in Shangri La, at a temple-like hotel, complete with hot showers, heat in the rooms and while this was the eighth night in a row in a new room with a new bed, it was warm, and I have no complaints.

>>Brett’s Slideshow

Brett Jenks, Rare’s CEO, blogs about his trip to Asia, where he visited Pride campaigns taking place in China and Indonesia. Follow Brett’s adventures as he witnesses local conservation efforts to protect endangered species in Asia and shares how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in this part of the world.

Nov. 9th was literally the coldest night of my entire life.

It was 20 degrees in my room, and for 90 minutes before falling asleep, I was under the covers, wearing as many of my clothes as I could gather without actually getting out of bed to do so: wool socks, capilene long johns, wool undershirt, wool sweater, wool cap. And still I couldn’t get warm. We all laughed about it the next day, but it was cruel until everyone fell asleep.

We began hiking up to the waterfall on the 10th.

the view of our hike route early in the morning. Nowhere to go but past the temple and up the mountain.

while my party works laboriously to get up the final few kilometers to the sacred waterfall, stopping to take deep breaths and rest our legs, inexplicably, whole families of elderly Tibetan men and women, and some children, hike next to us, singing, chanting, smoking cigarettes as they breeze up the mountain.

Lei under the sacred waterfall after what felt more like a “summit” than a hike. We’re now at 4100m.

While Mr. Ma pays tribute to the waterfall, bathing in the mist falling from 1000 ft above, I pose for my birthday photo, complete with a lucky rainbow, Tibetan offering to future generations, and prayer flags. (photo by Nigel Sizer)

Mr. Ma assured us that this was a 45-minute hike to the top and that we’d be back for lunch at noon and ready to pack our bags for the trek to Lower Yebong Village, where we had meetings with local villagers. Mr. Ma has a “unique” sense of time.

Several times during our multi-hour hikes and drives he said, “Just 10 minutes more,” only for us to find that we had hours to go. In fact, we regularly turned his 10 minutes into 60 at a minimum, and Ken at one point decided to give Mr. Ma a nice watch he’d purchased in Singapore.

Maybe the next party Mr. Ma guides will benefit from Mr. Ma’s new timepiece.

Before dinner, Nigel and I sat down with Ruth to discuss her thoughts on supporting Rare’s Asia program. Overlooking the glacier-topped valley, Ruth talked of her Chinese heritage and a new desire to support Rare’s work there, in part to honor her grandfather, who started YTL, the Malaysian conglomerate her father now runs, and for which she is a chief investment officer.

Our host, who doubles as the lodge’s chef, has just returned from New York City. He was the first community member to travel to the United States, where he was interviewed by The New York Times for his work on PhotoVoice, an indigenous photography contest in which local villagers photograph their surroundings for a traveling exhibit. He may be a good photographer, but he’s also a very good chef. And with the cold air and all the hiking, we savored every bit of stir fry, hot pot and our first cold beer in over a week.

>>A few notes on eating meals together in China I picked up on the internet

>>View more photos from this hike

Brett Jenks, Rare’s CEO, blogs about his trip to Asia, where he visited Pride campaigns taking place in China and Indonesia. Follow Brett’s adventures as he witnesses local conservation efforts to protect endangered species in Asia and shares how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in this part of the world.

We reluctantly left Yongzhi Village early in the morning.

After the welcoming we received, the traditional dancing in the evening, and the fact that our campaign and the four pilot green homes are just getting started, it would have been nice to stick around a few months and chip in to make this project happen, but we have a four hour drive to the foothills of Mt. Kawagebo and then a five hour hike up the side of Mt. Kawagebo.

It was time to get going.

Yak butter tea, a staple for the Tibetan people living at the base of Mt. Kawagebo, is an acquired taste for some outsiders.

Over breakfast, Mr. Ma told us that the Yongzhi community center where we sat for three hours the evening before is on the verge of being condemned. The roof is caving in and community members have pooled about $5,000 to rebuild it using green building methods, but they need another $3500 to finish the job. Together, our party commits to asking friends and family to contribute to help them finish the project.

This will be a great way to give something back to such a wonderful people and continue the process of building sustainable technologies into traditional Tibetan construction practices.

If you’d like to contribute, please click here. Rare will collect the funding and pass through 100% of the funds raised. Just make sure you specify that your funds are for the Yongzhi Green Community Center.

Leaving Yongzhi. A road less traveled, but one I hope never gets paved.

Nigel and Mr. Ma point the way for our hike up to Yubeng Village. You can see the route of our hike just by following the light blue trail to the top and then heading right all the way to the top of the treeline.

At the top of the first peak, around 4000 feet, we met a Buddhist monk from Yebong Village, headed out of town as we prepared to finish the hike to town. (Photo by Nigel Sizer)

As it turned out, we started climbing the mountain too late in the day, and we had to spend the last hour hiking in darkness to Lower Yebong Village. This turned into a comedy of errors. Only a few of us had flashlights.

Mr. Ma barely knew the way, we were at about 3500 meters, it was below freezing, we had been hiking and sweating for four hours, and we were giddy and exhausted. At one point, Mr. Ma suggested we take a short cut across a pasture, and we all dutifully began climbing a fence in the dark.

Then Lei and Lingang noticed a traditional log ladder which we all used to climb onto an adjacent path. (The next day, we found that the one really tough looking bull in the whole village was standing alone in that pitch black pasture and would probably have had a less warm greeting for us than our Tibetan friends.)

>>Brett’s Slideshow

>>Rare Pride in Action at Meili Snow Mountain Nature Reserve!

Brett Jenks, Rare’s CEO, blogs about his trip to Asia, where he visited Pride campaigns taking place in China and Indonesia. Follow Brett’s adventures as he witnesses local conservation efforts to protect endangered species in Asia and shares how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in this part of the world.

The Rare-TNC Pride Campaign in Meili Snow Mountain:

The Meili Snow Mountains rise between the Salween River and the Mekong River, in the extreme edge of Northwest Yunnan Province on the Tibetan border. The region is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a good portion is largely still wilderness. Fir and spruce forests up the mountainsides are home to snow leopards, Asiatic black bears, red pandas, and thousands of species of plants. This is also the rhododendron epicenter of the world and supposedly even more beautiful in spring.

Rare is partnering with the Municipal government and TNC to develop and promote a model for home construction that uses less timber in construction and much less fuelwood to heat. TNC has been working on green energy here for years, and the Pride campaign is designed to accelerate adoption of green building practices over the next few years.

>>Read more about Rare’s campaign in Meili Snow Mountain

>>Brett’s Slideshow

>>Meili Snow Mountain – the Highest Mountain in Yunnan, China

Brett Jenks, Rare’s CEO, blogs about his trip to Asia, where he visited Pride campaigns taking place in China and Indonesia. Follow Brett’s adventures as he witnesses local conservation efforts to protect endangered species in Asia and shares how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in this part of the world.

What a day.

I’m pretty speechless after all that we experienced today, and I’ve decided to just share the agenda and show you what I saw through photos. I had my first three cups of Yak butter tea, watched Tibet’s most sacred mountain appear out of the darkness at sunrise and visited one of the most humble and beautiful villages accessed carefully through what looks like a small crevasse in the side of a mountain.

Agenda for the day:

5:30 a.m. – Watch sunrise over Mount Kawagebo (Kawa Karpo), the sacred Tibetan and still-unclimbed mountain.

Local Tibetan pilgrims, who aim to climb just below the snow line and drink from the holy glacier water, burn incense and pay homage to the mountain, which they believe protects them and provides for them.

The story of Kawagebo is a powerful one, best told by our new friend, Mr. Ma. Recording this video at sunrise was one of the highlights of my trip to Asia.

A young Tibetan villager welcomes our party with a traditional water offering.

The Tibetan women of Yongzhi welcome our party to their small village. Few foreigners visit this village, which just got a dirt road wide enough for a car a year ago.

The Nature Conservancy’s Pride program manager, Huang Gang, who is currently studying community outreach techniques at Southwest Forestry College, Rare’s training center in Yunnan, is warmly welcomed into Yongzhi village.

2:00 p.m. – Visit demonstration households and meet community members.

Huang Gang and Mr. Bai, the chief architect behind the Tibetan Traditional Green Building project.

The proud builder of one of the Tibetan region’s first green homes.

Rare trustee Ruth Yeoh, helping create the sustainable building blocks of Tibetan green homes.

7:00 p.m. – Traditional Tibetan village celebration.

During the celebration, I did something I never thought I’d ever do in front of 200 Tibetan villagers at 13,000 feet above sea level.  You’ll have to read Nigel’s blog to find out more.

>>Brett’s Slideshow

>>Rare CEO Visits Asia – Arrival in Beijing

Brett Jenks, Rare’s CEO, blogs about his trip to Asia, where he visited Pride campaigns taking place in China and Indonesia. Follow Brett’s adventures as he witnesses local conservation efforts to protect endangered species in Asia and shares how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in this part of the world. 

The journey to Meili Snow Mountain began on the 7th. Nigel, Shiyang, and two of our guests – Ligang Jin and Lei Shen – all flew from Kunming to Shangri La.

For us it was simply a nice airport and the jumping off point for a very long day. We picked up our other two guests – Rare’s first Asia-based board member Ruth Yeoh and her boyfriend Ken Khaw, who had flown in the night before from Malaysia and Singapore – and headed to Degin, the municipal capital and location of The Nature Conservancy’s regional office.

Other than perhaps the Andes, I’ve never driven on more breathtaking roads. Peaks at 18-20,000 feet all around. A road that eventually winds its way up to a height of 4290 meters (14,000 feet). And countless bends where the wrong turn or an oncoming vehicle could mean an instantaneous thousand foot plunge.

In addition to keeping a healthy digestive system, the new goal became “get home without driving off a cliff.”

Jianzhong Ma, who is Rare’s senior advisor for the Meili Snow Mountain project, is a man of many talents. Tibetan by birth, he is a forestry expert, a community development practitioner and a former fellow at Columbia University. He’s on staff at the Yunnan Forestry Scientific Research Institute, and he’s one of the architects of Rare and TNC’s green building project. He’s also a great story teller, and I’ve decided he’s my guide for the trip. Here’s his description of the Tibetan prayer flags at 14,000 feet:

>>Watch video

Upon arrival in Deqin, we are quickly whisked into The Nature Conservancy’s local office to meet all of Rare’s Pride partners in the region. This includes the TNC staff and several representatives of the Deqin (“day chin”) County Environmental Protection Bureau. After all of the beautiful vistas and a full-day’s drive, I was treated to the requisite PowerPoint that highlights TNC’s China program and the Rare Pride campaign strategy. With jet lag and a day of car sickness competing with the high altitude, it was tough to take in all the information, but it’s pretty easy to see why this work is so exciting. (And fortunately, Shiyang and her China team had already given me a long briefing). Looking forward to diving in further.

>>Brett’s Slideshow

>>Rare CEO Visits Asia – Arrival in Beijing

Brett Jenks, Rare’s CEO, blogs about his trip to Asia, where he visited Pride campaigns taking place in China and Indonesia. Follow Brett’s adventures as he witnesses local conservation efforts to protect endangered species in Asia and shares how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in this part of the world.

On the 6th we met with Rare’s China Advisory Committee to update them on Rare’s strategy and to get their feedback on conservation priorities that we should be addressing.

Huang Gang, Rare Pride campaign manager from Meili Snow Mountain Nature Reserve presents conservation challenges and proposed solutions at his site.

The committee is co-chaired by Rare’s VP for Asia, Nigel Sizer and Shaomin Zhang, the Secretary General of the China Environmental Culture and Promotion Association (CECPA), which is affiliated with China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).

Thanks to the work of our China team, Rare’s partnerships have come a long way in the past two years. We know making an impact here will take collaborating with a diverse mix of people, which I think we have on the committee. The advisory committee is an impressive group with deep experience in conservation, academia, US-China relations, and business management. Hats off to Nigel and company for putting this group together, as well as the generosity of the following members who agreed to support Rare’s efforts to expand environmental education in China:

• Ligang Jin, Chairman of Stonebridge China, a government affairs consultancy, who negotiated on behalf of China’s entry into the WTO.
• Edward Tian, chairman of China Broadband, a private equity firm. Tian has a PhD in natural resource management and serves on The Nature Conservancy’s Asia Pacific Council.
• Shawn Zhang is the China Director for The Nature Conservancy.
• Yuming Yang is the Vice President of Southwest Forestry College.
• Changua Wu is the Greater China Director for The Climate Group.
• Xuemin Shao is the chief representative in Asia for the Nordic Investment Bank.
• Jun Ma is Director of the Public and Environmental Affairs Research Center.

Rare’s National Advisory Committee in China.  From left:  Professor Yuming Yang, Southwest Forestry College;  Brett Jenks, CEO, Rare; TNC China director Shawn Zhang;  Xuemin Shao, Nordic Investment Bank,  Changua Wu, The Group China; Nigel Sizer, Vice President Rare Asia.

We spent much of our time together discussing Rare’s new emphasis on identifying local conservation solutions — energy efficient architecture, fuel efficient wood stoves, community managed fisheries and forests. We then discussed scaling them by training a network of local leaders to mobilize communities to adopt them. When we first started talking with CECPA and the Ministry of Environmental Protection we were only talking about environmental awareness, which is obviously a big issue in China.

But over time Rare has learned that raising awareness isn’t enough. Even if people want to make changes they need help overcoming the basic barriers to change. In rural China, there are cultural barriers, economic challenges and sometimes technical complexities to address. So, Rare wants to pick one new solution each year and roll out a dozen projects in a dozen sites to begin to disseminate what works. Fortunately, our advisory council fully agrees.

CECPA’s Secretary General is keen to build public awareness of environmental challenges in China and is outspoken in his support of Rare’s approach to doing so at the local level.

After an informal lunch with the Advisory Committee, we headed to the airport (once again, Beijing in a day!) for our trip to Kunming, Shangri La and then Meili Snow Mountain, one of the Tibetan Buddhists’ most sacred sites (not to mention the site of a Rare Pride campaign run in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, designed to inspire green building and reduce fuelwood consumption among the Tibetan people of Yunnan Province).

>>Brett’s Slideshow

>>Rare CEO Visits Asia – Arrival in Beijing