Communities and Conservation: Passion, Commitment, and Resiliency

When Sililo Agness Musutu, WWF-Zambia’s freshwater program coordinator, heard about plans to build a hydropower dam on the free-flowing Luangwa River, she knew she had to stop it somehow. This poorly conceived power project would flood whole communities, cause drought in others, devastate the river basin’s wild animal and fish populations, and irrevocably damage the wildlife tourism industry. She was certain if Zambians were aware, they wouldn’t want the dam. But she knew one voice wouldn’t be enough—she had to pull in the right people to amplify the issue. So Musutu, with help from the WWF-Zambia team, connected with leaders of multiple chiefdoms in the Luangwa basin, who talked with their communities. She brought scientists together with government agencies to discuss the impacts. She got Luangwa residents, tour guides, and revered Zambian activists to speak out for the river in national PSAs. And she worked together with WWF-US and WWF-Netherlands to get almost 200,000 signatures on a petition to protect the Luangwa. Her collaborative strategy was a huge success: In June, the Zambian government announced they were halting plans to build the dam.

It was an emotional moment for Ricardo Alberto Airasca when he flipped the switch at an official opening ceremony bringing renewable energy to his hometown of Armstrong. In the late 1970s, he’d left his birthplace in Argentina’s Santa Fe province to pursue an electrical engineering degree, and then worked far away in Patagonia on wind and solar energy research. But when Armstrong asked Airasca if he’d manage their public services cooperative, he was eager to return home. He brought with him the spark of an idea: making Armstrong a renewable energy town. But, Airasca says, he believes in teamwork, not personal projects—so he and the cooperative took the idea to the community, which enthusiastically embraced it. Working with experts from local universities and supported by funding from the province—an Alliances for Climate Action member—the cooperative has built, and is helping install, solar panels on area rooftops. This provides renewable power for the area, as well as new jobs that will give young people like Airasca’s son Gustavo opportunities to stay in the community.

Chhabi Magar walks through western Nepal’s Gauri Mahila Community Forest, reminiscing about a time only 10 years ago when this area was treeless, and the only place he’d see tigers was on rupee notes. But now, thanks to community reforestation projects, the forest is abundant—and thanks to the work Magar is doing, his dreams of seeing real wild tigers are coming true. For the past two years, Magar has been serving as a local citizen scientist, setting up and maintaining camera traps in the forest close to where he lives in order to monitor tigers’ movements. By capturing these images of the big cats in their natural habitat, scientists can get a much clearer sense of how tiger populations in the forest are faring, providing valuable insight into how to best protect them. Happily, the results of Magar’s camera trap data are contributing to some very uplifting news. Eleven years ago, only 18 tigers were counted in this region. Today, there are 87.