Blog Story and Photo Credit to Inclusive Conservation Initiative
Our week began with the arrival of our dedicated African regional partners ANAPAC and IMPACT, who embarked on long journeys from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Kenya respectively. Among the participants were fellows from each organization and three community members, who came from the remote forests of the DRC and the far northern regions of Kenya. They gathered with us for a unique and first-of-its-kind event: the Africa Regional Learning Exchange, part of the Global Environmental Facility(GEF)-funded Inclusive Conservation Initiative (ICI). Hosted in our beautiful home of Tanzania, this gathering marked a significant milestone in our shared mission to enhance Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ (IPs & LCs) efforts to steward land, waters, and natural resources.
The ICI is a groundbreaking five-year project aimed at providing direct funding access to indigenous-led conservation initiatives, managed through the collaborative efforts of IUCN and Conservation International. Together with our regional partners, we had the pleasure of welcoming Anita Tzec and Tianyi Zhao from IUCN, along with Lia Lopez from Conservation International. We were also honored to host six key IPLC leaders from Benin, Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, and Mozambique, bringing the total number of participants to 37, including those involved in the ICI project and beyond. The core objective of this learning exchange was to enhance the capacity of Indigenous Peoples (IPs), fostering the transformational changes necessary to amplify the contributions of IP&LCs to biodiversity conservation and global environmental benefits.
Read the Blog Here: https://inclusiveconservationinitiative.org/a-journey-of-learning-and-unityreflections-from-our-inclusive-conservation-initiativeafrica-learning-exchange-in-tanzania/