What are we doing?

Where do we work or have we worked since the foundation was founded in 2013?

Some forest regions of Africa and Southeast Asia. Some lynx areas in Central Europe. Darmstadt/South Hesse/Odenwald region.

Where could we gain experience before setting up the foundation?

Foundation founder Klaus Berger was involved in the protection of boreal forests for many years and traveled and worked in Northern Europe, mostly beyond the Arctic Circle. He was active for many years on the North American west coast to protect temperate rainforests. He lived on the South Island of New Zealand for a year and studied the ecology of the rainforest there and came into close contact with the Maori culture.

Community based Conservation

... refers to the development of nature conservation measures and projects by local village communities and indigenous peoples. Today, around 80% of the remaining biodiversity can be found on the land of indigenous peoples and local village communities, which is based on their sustainable way of life developed over centuries or even millennia. However, indigenous communities are still being displaced or forcibly relocated for conservation reasons. Worldwide, the number of people displaced for conservation reasons is estimated at around 130 million. In Africa alone there are said to be around 14 million. Many local communities and tribes are now becoming active and developing their own conservation projects, also to show that they are very capable of preserving their habitat and protecting the wildlife that lives there. Their models are often based on the coexistence of humans and wild animals and not on separation, as is rooted in Western conservation thought. It is important to us to promote such community-based nature conservation projects and, if necessary, to advise on implementation details, to help find sponsors and to take on parts of the public relations work.

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Developing models for sustainable coexistence and community-based conservation

For years we have been working on developing models of how solutions for coexistence with wild animals and for the implementation of innovative ideas in local nature conservation can be transferred from individual projects to other regions and projects. The first result is a list of basic steps on how nature conservation can be implemented with local village communities, which includes the goal of coexistence with wild animals:

1. Improving the living situation in village communities through simple technologies (solar, energy-efficient stoves, water treatment)

2. Education, environmental education and education for sustainable development.

3. Support with basic medical care.

4. Help reduce wildlife conflicts.

5. Biotope renaturation and reforestation. Permaculture and agroforestry. Food Forests. Rainwater storage.

6. Non-invasive wildlife monitoring.

7. Development of nature conservation measures tailored to the needs of the village community and assistance with implementation. 8. Help in obtaining funding.

9. Wild animals as bio-indicators for the successful implementation of the nature conservation measures implemented to date.

10. Help develop low-impact sustainable tourism that benefits the village community.

11. Public relations and film documentation.

12. Identifying the project's special innovative ideas in order to make it available to other projects in our database.

We help and advise village communities in the implementation of individual aspects or the entire 12-point model.

Networking

Despite the work of many large, international conservation organizations, we are in the era of the greatest mass extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, which shows that the work of these organizations alone clearly cannot prevent this.

At the same time, it has been found that more than 80% of the remaining biodiversity can be found on the land of indigenous peoples and local village communities, which proves the enormous importance of these communities for global species conservation. However, indigenous communities are still being evicted from their land or forcibly relocated in the name of nature conservation, sometimes in collaboration with nature conservation organizations. The number of these “nature conservation refugees” displaced worldwide is now estimated at around 130 million people.

We see these local village communities as a central factor in future global nature and species protection. Often it is small, local projects that they have initiated or it is simply their way of life that leads to the sustainable preservation of their land and biodiversity. The projects are often too small and the number of people in the communities too low to achieve much on their own. That's why networking is so important. Many of these communities are already cooperative across continents and are developing common positions and projects. Others have developed solutions for nature conservation issues that have not yet found their way to other regions, but could be very helpful there. It is therefore particularly important to us in our work to help create networks between these communities and to provide advice and support.

Our work in Germany

..., like our international work, deals with solutions for the coexistence of people and wildlife and the support of local nature conservation projects and organizations. In the global south, we are supporting so called "community based conservation". 

In our home region in southern Hessen, Germany, the headquarters of our foundation, we are supporting citizens' initiatives and local projects that have set local conservation issues like the returning of large mammals such as lynxes, wild cats and wolves.