The Foundation seeks to support communities in stewardship of their landscapes and seascapes, and of the associated bio-cultural diversity, ecosystem services and food-ways – all of which are the basis for life on earth.

Our funding priorities include:

• Conservation of biological diversity (terrestial & marine)
• Sustaining cultural diversity (linguistic diversity, as well as traditional knowledge systems & practices)
• Maintaining ecosystem services (water, soil, carbon sequestration)
• Supporting food security & economic vitality of local communities
• In the marine environment: sustaining healthy reefs and support of sustainable fisheries

Approaches

We support community-based projects that seek to meet these challenges in a variety of ways. Among the kinds of approaches we support are those concerned with:

• Creating and/or ensuring effective management of protected areas, in particular Indigenous and Community-Conserved Areas and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)
• Ecological restoration (e.g., tree-planting) involving native species. Priority will be given to those efforts linked to existing conservation areas already valued by communities (for example, a project to plant a buffer zone near a sacred grove)
• Providing enhanced and alternative local livelihoods, including sustainable agriculture and value-added products to support local economies
• Environmental education and “transformative education” which draws on indigenous and local traditions, language, etc. to address present-day problems
• Use of the arts and other innovative methods to convey social and environmental messages
• Fostering civic engagement of communities through creative facilitation and other methods of stakeholder involvement (e.g., public meetings, community mapping)