Financial sustainability is an overarching aim for YUS landscape management. Woodland Park Zoo, with the help of Conservation International’s Global Conservation Fund and other donors, established a two million dollar endowment for the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program and the YUS Conservation Area in 2011. The non-sinking endowment is managed by Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) and follows procedures outlined in WPZ’s Operations Manual. Four percent of the interest earned by the endowment is to be disbursed annually by WPZ in accordance with TKCP-PNG annual plans and budget formulated in December of each year, and is designed to provide partial funding for core landscape programs in perpetuity. 

To ensure the long-term sustainability of the YUS CA, local communities must participate in and benefit from its protection. To encourage community engagement and sustainable development, TKCP builds partnerships to address local needs for livelihoods, health, education and skills training. 

The YUS Conservation Coffee program is an integrated approach to optimizing supply for a sustainable crop, while building connections to international markets. By selling farm-direct to Caffé Vita and other buyers, YUS coffee farmers earn revenues more than 35% higher than local market rates. Adequately covering production and transport costs, premium coffee export has become an economically viable industry for YUS communities. TKCP is now working to replicate this success among cocoa farmers by working with the PNG Cocoa Board and chocolatiers to improve local cocoa quality and to identify new markets. In addition, TKCP is facilitating the establishment of a YUS Conservation Coffee and Cocoa Cooperative to strengthen the management and marketing of the two crops.

TKCP's community livelihoods programs have fostered community buy-in for conservation, which is further bolstered by environmental education and community health efforts, ensuring the social and cultural sustainability of TKCP. 

Promoting EbA measures with a high level of community involvement and binational ties was an effective way to achieve greater interaction between community, municipal and national actors, and also between peers (network of resilient producers; local government encounter). The results are, on the one hand, greater local empowerment, and on the other, scaling-up of EbA measures both vertically and horizontally. Thus, contributions are made towards institutionalizing EbA and creating conditions for its sustainability. The replication of the integral farm model arose from networking between producers, communities and local governments, and from a regional project with the Binational Commission of the Sixaola River Basin (CBCRS) that provided the financing. The Agrobiodiversity Fair, the work of producers as a network, and the Binational Reforestation Events, which are now all under the auspices of local and national institutions, were important mobilizing forces of change and spaces for exchange and learning. In the vertical sense, the scaling-up of EbA included working with the CBCRS to integrate EbA in the Strategic Plan for Transboundary Territorial Development (2017-2021), and with MINAE in the National Climate Change Adaptation Policy of Costa Rica.

Communities took ownership of the following EbA measures once prioritized and implemented in a participatory manner in the basin:

1. Restoration of riparian forests. Binational reforestation events are held involving local communities and schools. These efforts reduce erosion, mitigate the risk of floods, and reinforce cross-border cooperation and local empowerment, including youth. The sustainability of this action is integrated into a reforestation strategy for the middle basin.
2. Integral farms / agroforestry systems. Practices are incorporated to manage ecosystem services and generate a high diversity of products (agricultural, forestry and energy). Soil conservation practices and a transition to agroforestry systems with crops and tree diversification, tropical orchards, sowing of basic grains and protein banks are promoted.
3. Recovery and valuing of autochthonous seeds and varieties. Agrobiodiversity Fairs are organized to promote the conservation of genetic diversity (criollo seeds) and their traditional knowledge. The impact attributed to the Fair can be seen in the increases in: participation (exhibitors), diversity of species (> 220) and offer of value-added products.

In addition to training and supporting communities to implement EbA measures through their productive practices, the aim is to generate evidence on the benefits of these measures and create conditions for their sustainability and up scaling.

• The socio-environmental vulnerability of 7 communities in the Sixaola River basin is examined in order to then identify and prioritize EbA measures.
• Diagnoses are made (productive, socioeconomic and agro-ecological) to identify families with a commitment to transform their farms and select those with the greatest potential to become integral farms.
• Technical support is provided to communities, complemented with traditional knowledge, to ensure that EbA measures contribute to food and water security.
• Exchanges and training are organized for producers (men and women), indigenous authorities, youth and municipalities on climate change, food security, natural resource management, organic fertilizers and soil conservation.
• Monitoring and evaluation is carried out to understand the benefits of EbA measures, and inform horizontal and vertical up-scaling.
• Activities, such as the Agrobiodiversity Fair and binational reforestation events, are carried out collaboratively with local actors.

PNG is one of the most diverse places on Earth — a country with over 850 languages and numerous mountain ranges that have historically limited contact between clans. These clans traditionally manage their own land their own way. Yet over the past two decades, communities scattered across the Huon Peninsula have defied tradition, joining hands to create a community-based group that collectively manages what in 2009 became known as the YUS Conservation Area (YUS CA), the first legally protected area of its kind in PNG.  Stretching over 75,000 hectares, YUS encompasses cloud forest peaks towering 4,000 meters high, coral reef on the coast below and tropical rainforest in between. The YUS CA protects not only the Matschie’s tree kangaroo, TKCP’s flagship species, but also a host of threatened species, as well as critical habitat that local communities depend upon for subsistence agriculture, clean water and hunting.

The YUS Conservation Area is managed in partnership among TKCP, the YUS community and the PNG government. TKCP manages the YUS conservation ranger team and the Ecological Monitoring Program conducts community awareness-raising, mapping and facilitates the YUS Conservation Area Management Committee.

In May 2016, the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) decided to temporarily suspend visits to Playa del Amor due to the impact of unregulated tourism activity in the national park. This decision forces stakeholders to redefine the way tourism will be done in the protected natural area.

Multiple meetings were held with all tourism service providers, authorities, and academics to define new rules, agree on rights to use the beach, and commit to co-investment.

The main rules that were established were the carrying capacity (116 people per day), the number of people on the beach at the same time (15), the maximum stay (30 min), the prohibition of the use of fins and the obligation to wear a helmet and vest to access the beach, and the exclusive use of the beach for tourist service providers (TSPs) with boats with a maximum of 15 passengers.

On the other hand, during the closure of the tourist activity, coral restoration activities are carried out, cleaning the seabed and monitoring the composition and structure of the reef communities.

This building block is led by the authority, in this case CONANP.

OASIIS is an online platform which collates data on the socio-economic activity within and beyond protected areas. By collating disperse, and often informal information, OASIIS builds a strong case for social entrepreneurship as a driver of sustainable development.

By showcasing the socio-economic impact as well as the stories behind the organisations, OASIIS aims to funnel social investment in order to accellerate and grow the positive social, environmental and economic impacts of businesses which have values in harmony with that of protected areas.

The Social Enterprise and Biosphere Reserve (SEBR) Development Framework can be applied to any protected area and aims to provide a living document that will be flexible and adaptable in different countries and contexts, within their own norms, values and approaches. As such the Framework is designed as a route map towards the emergence of social enterprise as a means to promote sustainable economic development, in harmony with social and environmental sustainability. For this reason we have developed a Framework that looks at the importance of four key Factors - Public Participation, Social Enterprise, Social Investment and Sustainable Public Procurement.

The Framework can be used to plot the current context in a protected area, highlighting local strengths and weakness in relation to 4 key Factors. Once this mapping process has been carried out an Action Plan can be designed, relevant to the particular country and BR. It is likely to take around 3 years to establish the momentum necessary for this approach to become self-organising and so sustainable into the future. 

For the continuity of the project, we need sustainable finance. Forena is currently partnering with Lux* Resorts and Hotels, Kolos, Rotary clubs, PWC(PricewaterhouseCoopers), Abax, IBL Together(Ireland Blyth Limited), HSBC(Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited) and Porlwi by nature (Ciel Group). It feeds into the overarching project to regenerate the total 11 hectares of the mountain ecosystem.Tree planting and clean up events were done with those stakeholders and their employees. These activities support the revival of the ecosystem of Citadel and Petrin, the reduction of soil erosion and desertification and allow the connection with nature and healthy living. In this way, the stakeholders get to know how their money is being spent for the reforestation of Citadel and Petrin.They are contributing to the conservation and preservation of the native forests of Mauritius indirectly. Protecting nature should not only reflect the work of non-governmental organisation but also that of stakeholders involved which would not have been possible without them.