Jean-Gaël “JG” Collomb says community-based conservation organizations know best how to tackle the complex conservation challenges unique to their ecosystems. However, they’re also among the most underserved in terms of funding of all stripes. On this week’s episode of Mongabay’s podcast, Collomb explains how his nonprofit, Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN), is working to change that. When it comes to funding conservation,” it’s really difficult to know who to give your money to besides a handful of organizations that a lot of people are familiar with,” Collomb says. WCN facilitates partnerships between community-based conservation groups, primarily in Global South nations with funders, in what has previously been described as “‘venture capital for conservation,” or as Collomb says, “people invest in people.” A common issue flagged by community-based conservation organizations is that funding often comes with strings attached or is tied up in bureaucratic disbursement mechanisms. Collomb wants to see these strings loosened or cut, allowing community experts to use the funds directly, and funding cuts to USAID exacerbate this issue. They are “the first actors,” he says. “We’re huge fans of being able to encourage people to give unrestricted [funding] … those organizations who are based on the ground in the field know best how to use that money.” But he also says that philanthropy that is both ethical and transparent is a serious consideration for the organizations WCN partners with. “I do agree that we have to be very careful as to making sure that when an action is intended to…This article was originally published on Mongabay
From Conservation news via this RSS feed