Three Claps for Conservation Landowners Play a Critical Role in the Fight for Tree Kangaroos
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Tenkile tree kangaroo
CPSG
For indigenous people living in the Torricelli Mountains, tree kangaroos are an integral part of daily life, being a source of dietary protein and featuring prominently in local legends and customs. The tenkile tree kangaroo is extremely rare, an estimated 100 left in the wild. CPSG’s reputation for balancing endangered species survival with the needs of local communities led the conservation agencies to ask them to guide their conversations about the conservation of tree kangaroos. CPSG’s PHVA confirmed that continued hunting of female tenkile would edge the species closer to extinction—possibly within just a few years. Team Tenkile visited several villages, where they gathered more information on tree kangaroos. Leaders from some of the villages helped organize a regional meeting to discuss the hunting moratorium on tenkile tree kangaroos proposal. Representatives of all thirteen villages in attendance signed a hunting moratorium and enthusiastically joined the conservation initiative for tenkile in the region.
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Impacts
A year later, Peter Clark helped draft a community-based conservation plan out of which the nonprofit Tenkile Conservation Alliance was formed. Thanks to the tireless work of its directors, Jim and Jean Thomas, the Tenkile Conservation Alliance has become a remarkable conservation operation whose efforts have helped increase the wild population of tenkile from an estimated 100 in 1998 to over 300 today. In addition to species conservation, the Tenkile Conservation Alliance carries out a number of community initiatives, including establishing alternate sources of protein and installing infrastructure for clean water and sanitation in participating villages. People within the local communities are integral to all operations. “The TCA would not have started without the workshop,” said Clark. “CPSG makes a difference.
