The village of Saga, located south of Niamey on the banks of the Niger River, was the initial setting for an innovative experiment in converting a troublesome invasive species in the river basin into an economic opportunity for the local community. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) has clogged local irrigation systems, limited navigability of the river, restricted access to local markets, and decreased the viability of the local economy, as well as severely impacting ecosystem health and water quality.École Instrument de Paix has mobilized community members to collect water hyacinth from ...

Honey Care Africa is a social enterprise that strives to raise incomes for rural Kenyan farmers through apiculture. Taking advantage of a tradition of beekeeping as a supplementary source of food and cash income for Kenyan farmers, the enterprise has sought to improve the productivity and viability of this sustainable livelihood activity as an alternative to poaching, timber-felling, and charcoal burning for many of the country's poorest rural communities.Through the design, manufacture, and sale of Langstroth bee hives, the enterprise has intervened to boost the supply capacities of farmers; ...

With the aim of preserving seed diversity and genetic heritage, encouraging the adoption of organic farming practices, and improving rural livelihoods, GREEN Foundation works through around 40 farmers' groups – termed Krishi Self-Help Groups – covering 30 villages across the northern districts of Karnataka, comprising a target population of almost 5,000 farmers, with a particular focus on women and indigenous peoples. All groups are members of a farmers' federation, Janadhanya. Beginning in 1994 with just a handful of farmers, the association now comprises 650 members.GREEN staff oversee a...

FrutaSã has its roots in a scoping study of the Brazilian Cerrado eco-region conducted in the 1990s to determine socioeconomic challenges facing smallholder farmers and indigenous communities. Alongside mounting environmental threats to the region, exacerbated by the economic marginalization of the rural communities and subsequent over-exploitation of local resources, these findings inspired the 'Fruits of the Cerrado' project, which eventually became FrutaSã Industry, Trade and Export Ltd.This eco-enterprise creates income for small-holder farmers through the sustainable extraction, marketi...

Responding to deforestation around the headwaters of the Nosara River, a source of drinking water and of wellbeing for the inhabitants of the small town of Hojancha in the central highlands of the Nicoya peninsula, local farmers came together in 1994 to enhance local forest conservation and create the co-managed Monte Alto Protected Zone. This 924-hectare area was created by acquiring land for natural regeneration or reforestation. A co-management agreement with the Costa Rican Ministry of Environment ensures local participation in the area’s management decisions.The

The Fish Production Cooperative Societies of Cozumel and Vigía Chico works to advance a model of sustainable fishing for local communities. Located on the tropical island of Cozumel, an international tourist destination, and in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site, the cooperatives have a long history of collaboration dating to the 1960s.Today, the two cooperative societies coordinate their fishing activities off the coast of the island of Cozumel, with a particular focus on lobster and scaled fish such as grouper, cod, and snapper. Together, the ...

Located in Nigeria's Cross River State, the Ekuri community manages a 33,600-hectare community forest adjacent to the Cross-River National Park. Community forest management began in the 1980s, when the villages of Old Ekuri and New Ekuri united in response to the proposed logging of their forest. The project would have included the construction of a road linking the villages to local market centres; instead, the community decided to sustainably manage the forest as a community asset, generating income, subsistence materials and food.Levies on the sale of non-timber forest products by community...

The artisanal fishers of the community of Tárcoles, located in the Gulf of Nicoya on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, faced declining fish stocks due to a combination of overharvesting by commercial shrimp boats and unsustainable local fishing practices. At the same time, development of the tourism sector along the coast threatened to restrict access to the shore and to marginalize their work. The local fishing cooperative CoopeTárcoles R.L. was founded in 1985 to confront these twin threats.At the forefront of these efforts has been the development of fishing bylaws that stress sustainable ...

Since 1995, the biologically diverse Collingwood Bay area on the coast of Oro Province, north-eastern Papua New Guinea, has been the setting for a conflict between the province’s 3,000 indigenous Maisin people and proposed commercial logging and palm oil development within the community's 262,000 hectares of ancestral lands. In 1998, 38,000 hectares of tropical forest were fraudulently signed over to a foreign investor; since then, Conservation Melanesia, a local environmental NGO, has been a critical ally in publicizing the community's plight and building capacity to resist the proposed dev...

The Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve is the largest marine protected area in Mexico, spanning more than 1.3 million acres of land and ocean. It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in recognition of its rich biodiversity and wealth of Mayan culture; "Sian Ka'an" is Mayan for "where the sky is born".Working within this protected area is Community Tours Sian Ka'an, an alliance of three sustainable ecotourism cooperatives that work directly with the Punta Allen and Muyil indigenous communities. While the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve receives thousands of visitors every year, indigenous co...