Archive for the 'Bright Spot in Conservation' Category

Marine Protected Areas can help preserve the world’s fisheries and the Coral Triangle (video)

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

“Fisheries management around the world has failed. We now have the capacity to be able to catch the last fish, the last whale, the last dolphin, the last shell.”

If the above embedded video does not display, click here to view it.

Stuart Green, director of the Philippines Program for Rare, discusses how Marine Protected Areas, and No-Take Zones specifically, can help protect the world’s fisheries and the Coral Triangle.

Green says that most marine conservation efforts have failed, but that NTZs show real promise.

Creating a lasting sanctuary for the mighty taimen fish in Mongolia

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

“It’s important that we not assume our conservation program is having a good effect, but that we actually monitor it against hard data.”

WWF Mongolia’s Rare Pride campaign will protect the taimen fish in the Onon River by working with local fishing people to adopt catch-and-release fishing practices in order to reduce illegal fishing.

“Let’s go out there and find out what’s working” (How to Change Things When Change is Hard)

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

“Focusing on what is working, however small, and generating enthusiasm for taking what works, taking a bright spot and replicating it and taking a bright spot to scale is a very simple but powerful idea.” — Brett Jenks

If the above embedded video does not show up, please click here to view it.

Dan Heath, Rare Trustee and co-author of the bestselling business book Switch: How to Change Things When Cha nge Is Hard, and Rare CEO Brett Jenks were recently interviewed by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of its Ideas and Advice series. They discuss how focusing on bright spots, instead of what is not working, is a great way to improve yourself, your projects and your company.

“Let’s go out there and find out what’s working.” — Dan Heath

Bright Spot in Conservation: Peter Knight on enforcing no-take zones in the Galapagos Islands

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

If the above embedded video does not show up, click here to view it.

Peter Knight, Executive Director of Wildaid, recently spoke to Rare CEO Brett Jenks about the technology and methods used to enforce no-take zones in the Galapagos Islands.

Earlier this year, Rare launched its first marine cohort in Bogor, Indonesia to improve fisheries management in the Coral Triangle through the use of no-take zones.

Bright Spot in Conservation: Dr. Nigel Asquith on finding incentives for farmers to protect cloud forests in the Andes

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

“What we’re doing is working with the local farmers to get the people using these water resources downstream to start kicking in some money themselves for conservation, so in the long term we no longer need our support, we no longer need Rare’s support because we’ll have created that social interest in conservation.”

If the above embedded video is not showing up, click here.

Dr. Nigel Asquith, executive director of the Ecofund Ecuador and director of science at Fundación Natura Bolivia, talks about the importance of watershed agreements in Bolivia and how these agreements between communities ultimately affect biodiversity.

Asquith has spent a lot of time in Bolivia working to find incentives for farmers upstream to protect forest in order to preserve water flow for farmer’s downstream. Rare is working with Asquith to replicate this strategy in number of sites throughout the Andes.

Last week we had a blog post and video on how farmer’s were taking up bee farming in Bolivia instead of cutting down forest for agriculture and cattle grazing as part of a community agreement to protect cloud forests.