The Village Savings and Loan Scheme is an IPaCoPA's sustainability strategy where members in their self-manage Groups meet regularly to save their money in a safe space and access small loans from the money collected among themselves to invest in livelihood projects at household level such as Agriculture and Solar energy. Because most individual members lack prerequisites to access loans from financial institutions, the VSLA scheme helps members to easily access finances and secure soft loans under group guarantorship. This supplements TUA's efforts to implement various aspects of the IPaCoPA initiative and to sustain the TUA's already supported projects such as looking after the trees planted and setting up kitchen gardens by households. With our external partners,  key of them who include the District Local Government, UNDP, SAI Group UK, and Jade Products Ltd, we have been able to get endorsements, Capacity trainings, Digital Platforms such as Project Management systems and access to e-commerce, Funding (forexample from UNDP-Y4BF to support 500 youth in commercial farming of Chilli), and other resources which makes IPaCoPA operate in complete ecosystem. 

Community-based innovation/local knowledge combined with science-based approaches are the best way to address problems of the rural poor. Smallholders in the tropics who have depended on slash and burn agriculture for generations want new ways to improve their lives-without crippling debt. Most all technology inputs in the global south require extensive infrastructure as most rural regions do not even have digital capablity or even cell phone service and families could not afford them even if they were available.
The simple planting techniques on Inga Alley Cropping combined with the amazing resilience of the Inga species show a clear and scalable path for saving rainforests and their rich biodiversity while providing 100% food security.

The families are 100% in charge of their land--making all the decisions about what they wish to plant and adding other components from our nurseries (citrus, hardwoods, cash crop alley for turmeric, black pepper, pineapple, avocado, Allspice, cacao, vanilla, ). The Inga Tree Model program has over 200 families waiting to plant alleys. They have seen the results of their relatives and neighbors and many have visited the demo farm to see for themselves how planting trees secures their futures.
The all-Honduran team live in the two river valleys, are farmers themelves,  who are known, trusted, and respected in the communities. The families have no debt or loans and are independent after their first pruning in 18-24 months. Not a single family that has adopted the model has reverted to slash-and-burn.

Families “pay it forward” by raising Inga seed stock and helping others with planting. This farmer-to-farmer initiative ensures the natural expansion and lasting success of the system. Inga alley cropping underpins the values needed for meaningful change in the global south.

Tree Academy Groups (TAGs) are formal community led conservation and advocacy associations established in Local Communities under the Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) Model, while Tree Academy Clubs (TACs) are student/pupil led and are established in schools (both primary and Secondary). They are grassroots channels of communication and distribution of our products and services, as well as implementers of various conservation and livelihood programs under the IPaCoPA initiative.

They facilitate platforms for members to express their views and opinions on matters affecting them to influence policy and decision making processes at local and national level. They also play an important role in amplifying TUA's awareness creation on critical issues of environment and livelihood development. 

The VSLA Scheme facilitates periodic meetings by group members  (usually weekly), during which they make savings and deliberate on impotant commununity development issues. It also keeps members active whilst facilitating knowledge sharing and joint decision making on general group development issues such as joint ventures. Members at times decide to invest their savings  in joint projects such as Tree Nursery, Tents and Chairs for hire e.t.c to generate more revenues into the group.

Some community groups and members are not directly involved in fishing but can influence the change that you need to happen. In this project we are engaging students and their teachers, sports and arts to raise awareness and secure wider public support. We organize school debates where students debate about fishing and gender inequalities, fishing and climate change, fishing and pollution of marine ecosystem, etc in the presence of their parents. We also have traditional dancing groups to entertain and convey the message. We support school teams through provision of sports gear and organization of class and inter and intra-school competitions. We also engage school administrations to promote school afforestation for which we provide seedlings. 

Though the project focus was on the fishing industry we recognized that the women and other community members are involved in other economic activities and mainly riz-agriculture. This meant that they have additional economic activities that needed to be taken into account. Recognizing these additional economic activities generated more interest towards our project. For example instead of organizing meetings based on the fishing activity we organized them taking into account the time they spent in their farms. When needed we met them in their farms and participated in their farming activities. 

The TUA Board forms the supreme planning and decision making body of the Organisation. The board makes informed decions and mobilizes resources that support and guide the project staff in the implementation of the organisation's strategic objectives under IPaCoPA solution towards fulfilling its vision "A clean, health and well protected environment supporting a sustainable Society and Economy". The TUA Staff is a team of six youthful and well qualified individuals who carryout the day-today activities of the organisation by engaging the community members in their respective Groups/Clubs through group leadersip (Executive committee), enhanced with formal MoUs between TUA and its member group/clubs.    

To introduce something which is seen as going against culture, traditions and spiritual beliefs require interactions with all members of the community. Particularly when such an introduction is perceived as intefering with the existing power relations between men and women. In this innovation, we spent almost 3 months talking to individuals, couples and groups in order to make sure each of them understands very well the project objectives. 

Traditional fishing gear excluded women from fishing because it was expensive, too heavy and neccessitated fishing at night. Strings and baits helped to overcome these challenges. Strings with baits attached are hanged in between mangrove trees close to homes. Women cast them early morning and collect their catch next day early morning.

Poaching poses serious threats to wildlife conservation and efforts at preserving wildlife through the establishment of protected areas are under threat by poaching of wildlife in the central High Atlas of Morocco.  The enforcement of the existing law against illegal capturing, empoisoning and killing of wild encouraged the authorities to participate actively in the protection of wild species and to enforce the law in certain cases. Raising awareness among residents and creating jobs in ecotourism and geotourism also participate in the fight against poaching. For example, in the Ouzoud site, the fight against poaching and the trade of macaques was one of the main factors responsible for the Barbary macaque population increase. We have actively participated since 2008 in collaboration with local authorities in the fight against illegal work (poaching, tree felling, etc.). We worked with some residents to obtain the necessary information on this work. in this context, we took part in stopping certain wild animal capture operations and we released a large number of animals in their original habitats.