The first community garden was built by Mr. Temp and his brother on their own initiative on a plot of vacant urban land in front of Temp's house in São Paulo's East Zone.

Both have experience in organic agriculture: His brother runs their great-grandfather's farm in Agudo in the South of Brazil, and Temp, after having studied business management in Rio de Janeiro (1985-88), completed a two-years course in organic agriculture on a farm in Tübingen, Germany (1993-95). 

The garden area had been abused as a dumping site. When neighbours saw the garden being built there instead, they became aware of and interested in this alternative kind of landuse. A group of people got together to help and to replicate the implementation of gardens. Temp guided them.

Today, having implemented 25 community gardens, he considers guidance crucial for the success of the gardens. Furthermore, this guidance needs to be continuous and intensive especially in the first year of a garden's implementation. Afterwards, community gardeners are able to manage their garden autonomously, but it is important for Cities Without Hunger to be present as contact persons and to lend bigger machines when needed. 

Before he founded Cities Without Hunger, Hans Dieter Temp had worked as project coordinator in the city of São Paulo's public administration, supporting the creation of the Secretaria de Relações Internacionais da Prefeitura de São Paulo, the mairy's secretary for international relations. He found that the effort put into administrative tasks could do little to tackle the actual problems of local people in 

the city districts, because the city administration was lacking staff responsible for such tasks, and because residents were lacking basic prerequisites to improve their situation. He wanted to close this gap and to be present on-site as coordinator to support the local network. In December 2003 he quit his job at the city administration and began the foundation process of Cities Without Hunger.

In 2008, the Government of Ecuador created the Socio Bosque Program (SBP) as a financial incentive mechanism aimed at private landowners, farmers, and indigenous communities, who are voluntarily committed to the conservation and protection of forests and other native ecosystems.

In the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, thanks to the progress in the Natural Resources Use and Management Agreements signed with the indigenous communities living in the area, the delimitation of their territories and to the subscription of land deeds in the buffer area. Land ownership allowed the people to comply with the requirements needed to participate in the PSB.

Currently around 86,000 hectares of the Reserve are part of the SBP, allowing the preservation of an important tract of land including the natural forest in the higher and lower region of the Reserve. At the same time, the program created an economic incentive for the communities and individual landowners interested on implementing productive projects. This was crucial to reduce the risk of the agricultural border advancement towards the Reserve.

The creation of a permanent fund to cover management expenses in protected areas, has helped government managed administrations to have an annual budget to cover their main operational activities, such is the case of the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve.

This fund is officially known as the Protected Areas Fund (PAF) and was established as part of a 1999 initiative carried on by Ecuador’s Ministry of Environment and the National Environmental Fund, the initiative was also supported by international organizations. The main goal was to diversify financial sources for public-sponsored protected areas and ensure financial resources in the long term.

The National Environmental Fund established in 1996 served as the main precedent to the PAF. It was considered as “an independent financial mechanism available to support plans, programs, projects, and any activity pursuing the protection, preservation, and improvement of the environment and natural resources”. This fund, created as a private organization, administered and channeled financial resources, provided technical counseling, but didn’t participate in the direct implementation of any initiative.

The Amazonian border integration initiative known as the Tri-National Program, was promoted by the Administrators of three protected areas (The La Paya National Park-Colombia, the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve-Ecuador, and the Güeppí National Park-Peru), enabling a management optimization under a regionally coordinated model.

It all started in 2005 as a result of the dialogue efforts carried on by the representatives of the three Protected Areas. In 2006 the initiative was consolidated as the Tri-National Program, since then it has continuously been strengthened over time.

The first important decision towards financial support for the initiative, was sought trough an agreement among the environmental funds available in each of the three participating countries. Afterwards, additional financial support was pursued through several projects that could cover the expenses of priority lines such as protected and buffer area’s management, social participation, organizational capacity improvement and the conservation corridor´s enhancement.

In this context, the Goverments united to seek operational, technical and financial mechanisms to ensure the conservation and sustainable development of the Corridor, with the ambition of becoming a successful pilot experience of transboundary management.

One of the great challenges for the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve was the consolidation of its boundaries and securing management agreements with the local populations and indigenous organizations. Under the previous logic of integrating cultural variables in the national preservation process, the project “Delimitation of the lower region, conflict resolution, and awareness of the communities about the resource management and use in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve” was successfully created.

The project main goal was to preserve the biological and cultural integrity of the Reserve under a strong alliance between the MAE and the indigenous communities that inhabit and coexisted in the territory: Siona, Secoya, Cofán, Kicwa, and Shuar.

As a result, in 1995 began the process of establishing Natural Resources Use and Management Agreements with most of the communities in these five indigenous nations. Such efforts promoted local participation and the recognition of the Protected Area for shared management.

The agreements became formal documents that legitimized the communities’ right to live in the Reserve and use the natural resources within under special conditions.

Nursery development is part of forest regeneration and environmental education. CAMGEW presently has 3 tree nurseries located in three sites in Oku (Manchok, Mbockenghas and Ikal) with a capacity of about 200.000 native bee-loving trees. The nursery at Manchok has been existing since 2011. The trees in the nurseries include: Prunus africana, Carapas, Nuxia, Pittosporum veridiflorium, Agauria salicifolia, Zyzigium staundtii, Solanecio mannii, Croton macrotachyst, Maesa lanceolata, Newtonia camerunensis, Bridelia speciosa, Psychotria penducularis and some agroforestry trees like Acacia, Leuceana, etc.  These trees are labelled with scientific names, local names and their uses. Our nurseries served as:

*learning grounds for children, schools and community members on nursery development, types of forest trees, need for forest regeneration, etc

*Sites where trees are nursed and planted in the forest

These nurseries are fenced with live and dead fences. They are watered and shaded in the dry season. Weeding is done regularly. CAMGEW nurseries also need to be sustained after trees are planted. Our nurseries serve as co-financing for most projects.

The forests of Mount Kilum Ijim cover an area of 20.000 hectares. They are vulnerable to many threats, such as the extensive agricultural and animal-farming development, deforestation and bush fires that endanger the ecological balance. Bush fires are caused by cattle rearers at mountain tops or by farmers using slash-and-burn at the boundary of the forest. The engagement of forest institutions and population in biodiversity protection needs to be guaranteed through conservation actions and livelihood improvement opportunities. With a variety of melliferous plants, this unique forest allows for production of high quality honey. The development of beekeeping is a solution to reduce threats to biodiversity by increasing income for local communities. CAMGEW has used apiculture as a tool to fight bushfires by engaging community members on beekeeping. When community members become bee farmers and own beehives in the forest, they prevent bushfires, and if bushfires occur, they directly put it off to protect their beehives. CAMGEW has trained 824 bee farmers as trainers, who trained 436 others in honey and wax production. Bee farmers received 617 beehives as starting point and have constructed 1972 more. 

Kilum-Ijim forest regeneration plays a vital role in watershed protection, promotion of biodiversity, preventing endemism (Mount Oku rat and Bannerman’s turaco) and apiculture, sustaining livelihoods and fighting climate change. CAMGEW’s action in regenerating this forest serves a local, national and global interest. As of July 2017, CAMGEW had planted 70.000 native bee-loving trees in Kilum-Ijim forest within a surface area of 172 hectares and trained more than 2500 community members in tree planting.  Thanks to these trees, communities produce more Oku White Honey from this forest. Forest regeneration activities include planning meetings with forest leaders and communities; the identification of  regeneration sites; clearing of paths for planting by men; pecking and digging of holes by youths; carrying of trees to the forest by women and proper planting of the trees in the forests by community experts. During this activity community members learn about tree planting and types of trees. The tree planting ends with an inclusive ceremony where we present work done to authorities and use the opportunity for forest sensitization. More than 15 variety of trees are planting by seedlings and cuttings like Prunus africana, Nuxia congesta, Schefflera abyssinica, Newtonia camerunensis,

The producer family with their garden is always linked with a broader sphere, such as the relationships between gender and generations, the social organisation, community, local and international markets, the cultures, and – something often overlooked as important – religion and/or spirituality. These aspects, however, should be considered within the concept of training.

The proposed methodology is based on a period of intensive theoretical and practical training of local trainers (facilitators) and lead farmers. In addition, the participants must "rebuild" their knowledge on their own plots of land. Individual practice must be supervised and accompanied by a senior trainer experienced in Dynamic Agroforestry.

Lead farmers present their practical know-how and document the processes experienced in the following installation period. In this way, a practical implementation of the concepts worked on can be achieved within a concrete context for the production level of a rural family. 

Upscaling is achieved as followed:

- 1 local trained facilitator trains 10 lead farmers

- 10 lead farmers accompany 5 to 10 farmers each in implementing DAF

- 10 trainers accompany 100 lead farmers

- 100 lead farmers  = 500 to 1000 followers