The Nature Conservancy. Protecting nature. Preserving life.™

LATEST RESEARCH:

• Measuring the Impacts of Community-based Grasslands Management in Mongolia's Gobi
• Striking a Balance: Socioeconomic Development and Conservation in Grassland through Community-Based Zoning

Well over 1 billion people on Earth live on $1.25 or less a day. Almost 1 billion are undernourished. And many of these people rely directly on nature as their life support — for essential resources such as food, water, fuel and medicine.

So are there conservation projects that both protect nature and increase human well-being—creating a win-win for communities and countries? And can we help build these projects around the world, building support for our work among those people it could benefit directly?

That’s the vision of The Nature Conservancy’s Conservation and Poverty Reduction Project (CPR). CPR is the world’s first multi-country project to quantify in a scientifically rigorous way which kinds of conservation initiatives have a positive impact on local people’s livelihoods.

We’re testing conservation projects from grasslands to coral reefs. Building on the path-breaking findings on natural-resource management of Nobel Prize winning economist Elinor Ostrom, CPR is identifying which factors make these projects successful — with the goal of helping communities and governments across the globe to replicate these successes.

Read below to find our more about our specific studies and findings thus far:

• Knowledge Review: Does Conservation Work Reduce Poverty?

The first-ever review of the scientific literature on which conservation projects have reduced poverty…and how.

• Asia-Pacific: Can Marine Protected Areas Help Reduce Poverty?

A synthesis of four case studies that measured the contributions to local poverty reduction from four marine protected areas in Fiji, Solomon Islands, Indonesia and the Philippines.

o Read the policy brief ("Nature's Investment Bank")
o See a 15-minute video of the study results
o Read the full report

• Kenya: Better Grasslands Management Benefits People and Nature

A case study on how community conservation efforts in northern Kenya have improved habitat for wildlife and well-being for people—and will increase community resilience in the face of climate change.

o Read the policy brief
o See a 5-minute video of the project’s results
o Read the full report

• South Africa: The Umagano Project

Can a community-based timber enterprise reduce local poverty and conserve important grasslands in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa?

o Read the full report
o Read the paper published in PLoS ONE

• Mongolia: The Impacts of Improved Grasslands Management

A grasslands management project achieves significant ecological and socioeconomic improvements—benefitting more than 5,000 Mongolians near that country’s largest national park.

o Read the policy brief
o Read the full report
o Read the paper published in PLoS ONE

• Ongoing Studies

- Niobrara Valley Preserve, Nebraska, USA (grasslands)
- Quito, Ecuador (water funds)
- Mobile Bay, Alabama, USA (oyster reef restroation)
- Raja Ampat, Indonesia (marine protected area)

 For more information on the CPR Project, contact Craig Leisher, the Conservancy's senior adviser for poverty and conservation issues, at cleisher@tnc.org.