Village Saving and Loan Scheme and External Partnerships

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. 

  1. Existence of clear objectives aligned to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that interest other organisations/Firms with similar or related objectives, and or philanthropic about what we intend to achieve through our objectives. 
  2.  The zeal and enthusiasm by the team leader and the board to search for relevant partners and express interest for partnership. 
  3. Access to and ability to use internet enhanced with an organisational website “www.treeugandaacademy.com
  4. Upholding the organisational principles and values.
  1. Building trust with partners and also determining the trustworthiness of those whom you partner with is paramount to sustain relevant and lasting partnerships. Concisely it’s important to develop clear agreements, be flexible and understand your partner’s language.   
  2. Partnership is a learning process therefore you need to be open order to learn from other partners, particularly local partners in areas where project activities are being implemented. Local partners have a lot to teach about the community needs and local context and how to develop and create more sustainable results.
  3. Failures on some partnerships is inevitable, in case partnership fails, it is important to assess why the partnership failed, share and learn from those failures, reiterate and incorporate the lessons learned into the next partnership.  
  4. The success of our organisation and the IPaCoPA solution ain particular relies on strong partnerships. Developing a partnership mindset based on relationships is far important because even when the funded activities end, the relationship continues and there is an opportunity for sustainable support.
Ramiro Ovejero
Promote sustainable use of wild guanaco populations through demonstrative experiences of live shearing in La Payunia.
Encourage the generation of a chain that increases the commercial value of the guanaco fiber by linking the primary production sectors with the national and international textile sectors.
Generate wildlife friendly certifications that increase the market value of the fiber
To Foster that Wildlife Friendly Actions (i.e, guanaco use) could bring solutions on the conflict generated between conservation and livestock production paradigm.
Ramiro Ovejero
Promote sustainable use of wild guanaco populations through demonstrative experiences of live shearing in La Payunia.
Encourage the generation of a chain that increases the commercial value of the guanaco fiber by linking the primary production sectors with the national and international textile sectors.
Generate wildlife friendly certifications that increase the market value of the fiber
To Foster that Wildlife Friendly Actions (i.e, guanaco use) could bring solutions on the conflict generated between conservation and livestock production paradigm.
Ramiro Ovejero
Promote sustainable use of wild guanaco populations through demonstrative experiences of live shearing in La Payunia.
Encourage the generation of a chain that increases the commercial value of the guanaco fiber by linking the primary production sectors with the national and international textile sectors.
Generate wildlife friendly certifications that increase the market value of the fiber
To Foster that Wildlife Friendly Actions (i.e, guanaco use) could bring solutions on the conflict generated between conservation and livestock production paradigm.
Ramiro Ovejero
Promote sustainable use of wild guanaco populations through demonstrative experiences of live shearing in La Payunia.
Encourage the generation of a chain that increases the commercial value of the guanaco fiber by linking the primary production sectors with the national and international textile sectors.
Generate wildlife friendly certifications that increase the market value of the fiber
To Foster that Wildlife Friendly Actions (i.e, guanaco use) could bring solutions on the conflict generated between conservation and livestock production paradigm.
RFCx Hardware

RFCx has created project-specific solutions for monitoring biodiversity and detecting illegal activities. Our hardware offerings include the RFCx Guardian and the RFCx Edge, both with specific strengths and goals in mind. 

Guardian: A device which streams acoustic data to the cloud and provides real-time monitoring. Guardians consist of a custom board, weatherproof box, antenna, microphone, and solar panels adapted to collect the light that makes its way through the canopy.

 

Edge: An acoustic logging device that listens for sound from audible into ultrasonic frequencies, and records uncompressed audio to SD cards. They are easy to install and can be configured by an app. They are used for in-depth short-term biodiversity assessments.

Every new project site has challenges, and we have been deploying an entirely new version of the Guardian since October 2020. We have been learning much about some of the nuances of the device. For example, we learned that in European environments we need additional solar panels in order to capture the low winter light. 

Huawei Cloud AI and Tools

Our AI model for chainsaw detections are modified and strengthened with support through our partnership with Huawei, and all data collected in our Huawei-sponsored projects is stored on the Huawei Cloud. Huawei has cooperated with RFCx to develop more accurate intelligent algorithm models based on Huawei's advanced artificial intelligence service (Huawei Cloud AI) and tools (ModelArts) to achieve more accurate identification of illegal forest activity (the sounds of chainsaws, vehicles etc.). In addition, Huawei is helping RFCx build intelligent models that detect and analyze the sounds of fauna, providing information about their habitat, threats, and even life habits, helping local partners protect endangered species.

RFCx's partnership with Huawei, including being granted usage of the Huawei Cloud for data storage and analysis, has enabled us to expand and refine our offerings like never before. Huawei and RFCx have worked together to develop innovative platforms that include equipment collection, storage services, and intelligent analytics.

 

Pursuing strong corporate partnerships, like Huawei, allows us to more efficiently tackle challenges through their support and tools. Huawei has enabled high precision models,which will significantly reduces the rate of alert false positives.

 

Terra Peninsular
Habitat Protection and Management
Habitat Adaptive Management
Awareness and Social Participation
Terra Peninsular
Habitat Protection and Management
Habitat Adaptive Management
Awareness and Social Participation
Identification and sthrength of OECM in Colombia

For the last 60 years, a great number of rightsholders in Colombia have promoted sustainable management and biodiversity conservation of their territories beyond protected areas, even though their conservation efforts have not been recognized as important elements of climate-smart land planning and have very little governmental support. 

 

The project’s overarching goal is to strengthen and make visible the culturally rich and socially diverse conservation and sustainable production initiatives that different Colombian actors are implementing, as a contribution to sustainable development that does not impoverish the country's natural patrimony.

 

As their identification as Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECM) is an opportunity to visualize those efforts, Resnatur and partners have been working for several years in adapting the OECM identification criteria to the Colombian context together with 27 initiatives, according to the international framework. 

 

This project contributes to the implementation in Colombia of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Decision 14/8 of 2018 that “Encourages Parties and invites others, in collaboration with indigenous peoples and local communities, to apply … …advice on OECMs”; … “Identifying OECMs and their diverse options within their jurisdiction;”

  • The adaptation of the international framework and especially the OECM criteria of the IUCN guidelines and the Decision 14/8 of 2018 to the Colombian context.
  • The application of OECM criteria on a case by case basis.
  • The development of two methodological processes to apply the OECM criteria and to identify the elements to be strengthened.

• OECM framework allows to recognize other forms of conservation and governance.

• Capacity building is needed to apply the OECM criteria in a bigger scale.

• National authorities should be involved in the discussion on how to apply the criteria.

• More resources will be needed to identify OECMs and to monitor the biodiversity outcomes.

• OECMs must be areas maintaining high biodiversity value. There is a necessity to develop participative monitoring methodologies.

• OECMs are an oportunity to increase connectivity, effectiveness and climate change adaptation of protected areas systems.

• OECMs are key elements to Post 2020 Biodiversity framework goals.