Too often, the people who live closest to nature suffer the most when natural systems are undermined. Pressures from unsustainable approaches to mining, oil exploration, agriculture, fishing, and forestry are eating away at wild landscapes including Indigenous peoples’ ancestral and sacred lands. Overfishing leaves coastal communities struggling to support their families. Climate change, water shortages and soil erosion mean smallholders’ crops fail.
Even or especially in the face of such challenges, the individuals, families and communities who live in the places are the conservation leaders we want to support. Conservation cannot be successful without them. At WWF, we prioritize deep community support, engagement, and inclusion. For us, securing nature and nature’s benefits for people are equal and interdependent goals.
Our work takes us to some of the most difficult places on Earth, where communities often face debilitating levels of violence, poverty, and weak applicati