The Initiative aims to support ecosystem-based and indigenous-led governance of this vast region and to secure stronger territorial rights. While historically, indigenous peoples had conflicts over territorial boundaries and still do at times, in the past two decades the region’s indigenous peoples have formed strong alliances to confront outside threats. This initiative seeks to unite indigenous peoples and strengthen alliances throughout the entire Napo-Marañon River Basins, expanding their collective purview to the larger bioregion. Viewing the strategy for protecting this region from the perspective of the entire river basin presents compelling and strategic opportunities to more effectively address regional threats brought by oil projects, dams, mining, and roads as well as to enhance the ecological and landscape connectivity.
As co-facilitators of this planning and alliance building process, Amazon Watch, Pachamama Alliance, and Terra Mater will work to ensure meaningful participation of affected indigenous peoples at all stages of this initiative.
- Participatory strategic planning process, bringing together indigenous organizations of the Napo-Marañon region to articulate and adopt a shared vision
- Bi-National Convergence of Indigenous Peoples of the Napo-Marañon Basins of both Peru and Ecuador with their allies
- Sub-regional gatherings and workshops for the Napo, Pastaza, Morona Santiago, Alto Marañon, Pastaza/Corrientes regions.
- Indigenous life plans guiding the agendas of the subnational gatherings.
- The promotion of the Sacred Headwaters Inititiave a the political proposal from CONFENIAE to protect their territories, based on the collective rights of indigenous peoples from the Amazon, has been a core aspect in the initial success of the activities planned.
- Having an achuar indigenous leader working within CONFENIAE, as the Ecuador Coordinator to expand awareness about the potential for such an initiative to build an alliance among the indigenous nationalities of the Napo-Marañon-Pastaza river basins in Ecuador and in Peru, has also been crucial.
- Numerous presentations and discussions about the Initiative have been conducted at indigenous assemblies in Ecuador’s Amazon region. In addition, the Initiative was also presented at the Achuar congress in Ecuador, at the Pan Amazon Forum in Tarapoto, at the bi-national Achuar Congress in Peru, and in all cases preliminary response to the Initiative has been very positive.
Crowdfunding is a relatively new way of funding projects, the goal being to inspire individuals to want to help you achieve the project goals by donating to the project budget. There are several online crowdfunding platforms that work in different ways, some of which require a fee whilst others are free. We used a site that requires us to meet a set amount of our budget before funds were extracted from donors, if we didn’t reach that amount then the project would not go ahead. The crowdfunding site was easy to set up but requires you to write project details into sections. This should be easy because of already writing the project proposals and pitch packs. We were also able to embed the campaign video into this site. Once the site was set-up we shared it on all our social media sites and through our personal networks.
It is extremely straightforward to achieve this step, once the necessary research and preparations are in place. It is a matter of 'just do it'. Once the crowdfunding begins, and gains momentum, it creeaetes a sense of excitement and energy among project team members and contributors alike, as we watch targets being met and the portfolio of supporters grow. Access to the totals and ability to track contributions is an important enabling factor.
The important lesson we learnt during the crowdfunding stage is that it is better to set up the crowdfunding page for a smaller portion of your project budget and therefore better to wait to see if your receive any cooperate sponsors before initiating this phase. It was also useful that SIF had committed £20,000 pounds to the project. This encouraged public and corporate sponsorship as it was used to match the first £20,000 that was raised. People are also more likely to sponsor a project target that looks achievable especially bearing in mind these will be smaller donations. The crowdfunding page must also portray the project clearly and appeal to a wide variety of people. It is therefore important to set up the reward system for donations, ranging from small rewards to substantial rewards for large donations. For example, we rewarded small donations with a high quality digital photograph by a wildlife photographer who spent time on Aldabra and large donations with an invitation to the post-expedition events, hosted in Queen’s College.
Seychelles launch 5th June. Selection of Aldabra Clean Up Project volunteers
State House Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles.
Seychelles launch 5th June. SIF board member presents Aldabra map to the President of Seychelles.
State House Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles.
Seychelles launch 5th June. SIF CEO Dr Frauke Fleischer-Dogley gifting Aldabra map to the President of Seychelles
State House Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles.
Seychelles launch 5th June. Project Officer and Co-team Leader, Jeremy Raguain records the event.
State House Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles.
Seychelles launch 5th June. Distinguished guest look on.
State House Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles.
Seychelles launch 5th June.The President poses with a guest and volunteers mingle with guests.
State House Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles.
UK Launch 22nd May. Volunteers stand with ACUP banner.
Adam Mitchell.
UK Launch 22nd May. ACUP Co-team leader April Burt discussing with fellow Oxford researcher.
Adam Mitchell.
UK Launch 22nd May. The Seychelles High Commissioner to the UK laughs with the UK High Commissioner to Seychelles.
Adam Mitchell.
UK Launch 22nd May. Volunteers discussing with guests.
Adam Mitchell.
UK Launch 22nd May. Co-team Leader April Burt present ACUP to guests.
Adam Mitchell.
UK Launch 22nd May. Guests watch a presentation on ACUP.
Adam Mitchell.
It is necessary to develop a strong, concise and attractive pitch pack, which is professional and clearly shows the project’s importance and budget. It is extremely important to make a clear pitch on how, by funding the project, the organisation or company will benefit. For example, for X amount of money the funder logo will be used on project t-shirts and the funder will be mentioned in all media coverage. The pitch pack should include the project logo, and use visual aids to bring the point across. In this case we used images of Aldabra, it’s wildlife and the impact of the plastic pollution. Since we were distributing these packs in the UK and Seychelles it was vital to create each pack with the local context in mind, whether it was currency conversions or the use of particular quotes from recognisable figures. Alongside the pitch pack we created a campaign video which introduces the problem and the solution using strong imagery and a voiceover. With these steps completed, we could then plan the project launch. The aim of the launch was to garner a maximum amount of media coverage and engage as many individuals and companies as possible via a face-to-face event. We therefore organised events both in UK and in Seychelles, in which potential donors and supporters were invited.
Team members skilled in visual design were key to ensure the pitch-pack was professional. The campaign video required basic video-editing skills, footage of the site and impact of plastic pollution. Advice on the pack’s design and how to approach companies from fundraising professionals was useful. ACUP’s launches took place in prominent locations, the Royal Society of London’s headquarters and the Seychelles State House. SIF’s Patron, Mr Danny Faure, President of Seychelles gave a video speech making ACUP as a project of national significance.
We found that the most likely success in pitching our project was to companies with some connection, either to a team member of the project or to the project itself via an interest in either Seychelles or Aldabra specifically. It is important to take time in ensuring that if you are emailing companies that you email the appropriate person to deal with your request. It is also a very good idea to make as many face-to-face connections as possible during the launch event and answer queries about the project to ensure there are no misunderstandings regarding project objectives and outputs. It is also a lot easier to gain the attention of funders if you already have some sponsorship and even better if you have a media partner for the project e.g. a local or international news agency.
Project Officer and volunteers brainstorming after a beach clean up.
Samuel Ramkalawan.
Project Officer and SIF team brainstorming.
Seychelles Islands Foundation.
Before beginning to approach potential funders it was necessarily to carefully plan and design the project and anticipate all the information that funders would wish to know. This includes the project aims and outputs, the team involved, the logistical plan and the budget. It is also important to clearly think about how the project will have a lasting legacy beyond the clean-up expedition. This should be developed into a full written project proposal.
Following completion of the project design it is necessary to set-up project media sites, this also required developing a project logo, title and tag line. We also set-up specific project email addresses. The media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & project website) all required initial content and therefore a photo library was compiled and content text established. Before launching the project we also completed team recruitment (12 team volunteers in total) and allocated specific team roles for the duration of the project, for example, social media officer, outreach officer, science officer. With this now in place it was possible to plan a fundraising strategy.
The project design required high levels of communication between the team In Oxford, The Seychelles Islands Foundation and the staff on Aldabra Atoll. This was to ensure the project fulfilled the overall aims and was financially and logistically feasible.
Having multiple persons working on the project development is beneficial but to ensure cohesion of ideas it is necessary to have regular meetings and to review the project development at each stage thus reducing the likelihood that key considerations will be missed.
Colombian and international communities are aware of SAMP - Communication and Outreach
Communication
INVEMAR
Communication Songs
INVEMAR
Developed attitude and behavior assessment surveys targeting specific groups (e.g., visitors, local communities, and productive sectors) who visit or reside near MPAs carried out at different times. A web-based “Friends of the SMPA Society” comprised of national and international scientists and members of civil society were put in place. The project developed an information dissemination and communication strategy specific in marine topics, which will inform the general population about MPAs through print, audiovisual (radio, TV, newspapers, and internet), as well as dissemination meetings. The main activities were: a)Dissemination campaigns; b)implementation of the SAMP web page; c)awareness campaigns in educational centers (schools and universities); and d) establishment of a data base of images and videos bilingual (Spanish and English). SAMP promoted in international and national events of scientific nature, such as seminars, congresses, side-event in COP of Biodiversity, among others. Main results: 11% increase over the baseline of behavior and attitudes test scores; 5 new funding proposals leveraged by the “Friends of the SMPA Society"; national recognition at the end of the GEF-Project promoted a participatory roadmap for sustainability of next 5 years reacheness.
Expectation about MPAs, as well as, the iconic topics on marine issues
Different audiences require different approaches, different materials and different media for dissemination of their information or experiences.
In order to define the Conservation Agreement, the partners adapted and applied the model of Tri-sector partnership building. The model helps build alliances between sectors with diverse interests aimed at promoting local sustainable development initiatives. In this case, we involed the community of Aripao, the company Givaudan, the buyer of the non-timber products from the forest and Phynatura, the organization of support and articulation.
For this block to be successful, an effective communication process was necessary, indicating the priorities and commitments of each sector and generating capacities in those members who needed tools in the negotiation processes. Given that sarrapia is the product on which the alliance is based, it was clear from the beginning that the preservation of the forest and traditional knowledge were elements for which all sectors had to work.
The tri-sector alliance depended on the construction of basic consensus among government authorities, civil society organizations and private companies, around priority issues or social issues for the three stakeholders. The success of strategies linked to sustainable development is facilitated when each sector knows its function making easier that communities that depend on natural resources to build sustainable livelihoods.
