Through a participatory multi-stakeholder regional planning process that includes government and civil society, the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative will develop and publicly present a compelling plan backed with rigorous analysis for protecting the region's unparalleled biological and cultural wealth as a pathway for Ecuador and Peru to meet their countries’ development needs while also leading the inevitable economic transition beyond dependence on fossil fuels and towards an ecological civilization.
- The national governments of Ecuador and Peru, as well as local provincial, departmental and municipal governments, will be key stakeholders in the process of moving this vision forward and will need to be engaged accordingly.
- High level dialogues and global advocacy
The process will look to lessons from other similar examples of successful multi-stakeholder processes and challenge the meta-narrative that more resource extraction alleviates poverty.
We will build upon the 2016 resolution adopted by the IUCN, calling for the protection of sacred natural areas free from industrial extraction as a way to advance protection for the Sacred Headwaters. We will be working with the IUCN to advance the implementation of this resolution in the lead up to the next World Conservation Congress in China in 2019-2020
The purpose of the communications group is to make the Initiative favorably viewed in public opinion polls in Ecuador and Peru; to have opinion leaders, scientists, ministers and key political leaders in both countries publicly declare their support for the Initiative and their opposition to expanding mining and oil activities; to obtain significant stories in both countries’ mainstream media and on social media; and to achieve international visibility in social media and conservation/environmental publications and networks, and among private and public conservation foundations and funding institutions.
- Develop a communications plan to popularize the global importance of the bioregion – producing compelling, interactive maps based on scientific information, and visual content, and use storytelling and media campaigns to build public support for the Initiative.
- Organize and mobilize opinion leaders, journalists, influencer networks, celebrities, scientists, and academics in support of the Initiative.
- Expand capacity building in media skills training for indigenous leaders to support their own storytelling and advocacy.
It would be crucial to generate debate and amplify the importance of indigenous climate solutions; biodiversity of the region; ecological functions of the Amazon; protection of sacred areas; development models not based on extracting fossil fuels and minerals; clean energy; and mitigating climate change.
The Ecological Planning Working Group of the Initiative will conduct research, analysis, and surveys, and facilitate indigenous peoples' own bio-cultural mapping. Mapping provides geospatial analysis for planning at the larger landscape scales. Compiling and integrating layers of information such as pending indigenous lands claims, industrial threats, wildlife corridors, hunting grounds, protection status, ecosystem types and biodiversity data, population data, access routes, and fluvial links helps the alliance establish priorities and make sound governance decisions. In addition, such biocultural mapping is a key aspect of storytelling.
- Work will be carried out and guided by indigenous leaders and technical teams to weave together a tapestry of indigenous life plans, further flesh out implementation and find emergent threads. Examples of potential emergent threads include developing capacity for implementing self-reliant renewable energy and/or transportation systems; training and coordination for watershed restoration and water quality management; and establishing a regional hub for incubating and innovating solutions.
- Engage academic sector
- Conduct research focusing on solutions and alternatives to current growth-focused economic models that are based on export-driven resource extraction industries and that instead focus on alternative indicators of wellbeing
- Exploration of models of indigenous co-governance in other parts of the Amazon or the world
Indigenous life plans respond to a development vision of the indigenous territories so it is important to ensure its implementation, respecting the particularities of each community and each indigenous group. These natural resource plans are created through collaborative decision-making, and provide tools for self-governance and participatory management that harness the collective wisdom of the community.
An initial process of gathering all the indigenous life plans has started since last year. However, various indigenous groups need financial resources to update their life plans.
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.
