Fauna & Flora International Conservation Report 2014-2015 Based on 2014 Annual Reports

Credit: J Holden/FFI

CONTENTS

Executive Summary

2

Introduction and context

4

FFI’s key approaches in 2014

6

Activities and impact in 2014

9

Aim 1: To deliver effective conservation of threatened habitats and species

9

Aim 2: To shape decisions within society to benefit biodiversity

19

Aim 3: To empower individuals and organisations to lead innovative conservation action

26

Aim 4: To improve FFI effectiveness

32

Learning from our experience 35

Conclusions and looking forward

36

Annex 1. FFI’s focal species 2014

37

Our Vision A sustainable future for the planet, where biodiversity is effectively conserved by the people who live closest to it, supported by the global community.

Our Mission Fauna & Flora International acts to conserve threatened species and ecosystems worldwide, choosing solutions that are sustainable, based on sound science and take into account human needs.

This report summarises FFI’s conservation impact and the extent and scale of conservation we have delivered in calendar year 2014. The primary audience for the report are our internal stakeholders and supporters, but the report is also available on request to external stakeholders. The report brings together detailed documentation from 158 of our projects representing 93% of our total portfolio and considers these against the key aims of our 2014-2018 Business Plan1: Working in partnership, using methods that focused on the people and communities closest to our work and using sound science, continued to be crucial to the way we approached conservation work in this period. Although not directly representative of our conservation impact, our methodologies are significant in their own right. Highlights from these approaches include the following outcomes in 2014: • We formed close working relations with 293 partner organisations across a variety of sectors and collaborated

more widely with over 250 more.

• In 96% of relevant field projects we worked directly to engage with communities, build community governance or contribute to sustainable livelihoods.

• Surveys, monitoring or research were undertaken in over 75% of projects and resulted in 15 peer reviewed articles and 15 other publications.

1A new FFI Business Plan for 2014-2018 has been agreed, and the 2014/15 Conservation Report is the first to report on impacts achieved under this.

Executive Summary

Credit: J A Bruson/FFI

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Aim 1: To deliver effective conservation of threatened habitats and species Aim 2: To shape decisions within society to benefit biodiversity Aim 3: To empower organisations and individuals to lead innovative conservation action Aim 4: To improve FFI effectiveness

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Reflecting upon our projects and our three main aims we are proud to be able to report the following conservation successes for 2014: To deliver effective conservation of threatened habitats and species • 70 projects worked directly on management of habitats or protected areas in 327 sites, delivering direct

conservation efforts within 16.3 million hectares of important habitats. • Outcomes including improved enforcement and protection, reduced threats and evidence of habitat or

biodiversity recovery were recorded in 138 sites. • 45 projects focused specifically on species conservation targeting 55 priority species. • Outcomes including improved enforcement and protection, reduced threats and evidence of species recovery

were recorded for 38 species. To shape decisions within society to benefit biodiversity • 64 projects engaged with the private sector, from receiving business funding or sponsorship to trying to

influence corporate decision making. • 25 of these worked directly with business operations to improve biodiversity management practices. • 39 projects engaged with policy makers contributing to the drafting or development of at least 11 laws,

regulations or government level strategic plans. • 76 projects engaged in conservation awareness or outreach reaching over 296,824 people. • 74 projects worked to develop pro conservation behaviour change with 40 of these reporting increased

awareness and engagement, changing attitudes, reduced threats and biodiversity recovery as a result of their work.

To empower organisations and individuals to lead innovative conservation action • 107 projects reported undertaking capacity building, conservation training or organisational support reaching

274 organisations and over 7,800 individuals. • FFI support directly improved the capacity of and/or the organisational effectiveness of 25 organisations. • Of 86 projects where we worked to build conservation capacity and leadership we saw the application of skills

and practices, increased effectiveness and improved biodiversity management and reduced biodiversity threats within 64.

To improve FFI effectiveness • 24 field and Cambridge based projects worked to improve internal FFI capacity, systems or internal learning,

benefitting at least 149 FFI staff. • 49 training events for 78 FFI staff were designed and delivered to meet the specific staff needs. • Key staff including a new Chief Operating Officer and an Impact Assessment Manager were recruited during

2014. Key outputs of these positons to date include a review of operational processes, systems and procedures to ensure they are fit for purpose and ready to support FFI in the next stages of its Business Plan period and implementation of new institutional approaches to monitoring and evaluation from project to organisational level.

Whilst we are excited and encouraged by the breadth and scale of these successes, we recognise that no report can capture the immense efforts, and complexities, of our projects, nor the dynamic nature of our work which is constantly adapting and evolving to meet changing external contexts. Each and every project report offers us an insight into how well FFI is delivering conservation and from these reports we have a unique opportunity to both learn and evolve as an organisation, and to communicate this internally and externally.

Introduction and Context

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FFI’s annual conservation reporting process aims to collate evidence of FFI’s conservation impact, and demonstrate progress in relation to our mission (to conserve threatened species and ecosystems worldwide, choosing solutions that are sustainable, based on sound science and take into account human needs) and four broad aims and targets laid out in our 2014-2019 Business Plan2:

2 This new business plan became operational from the 1 Jan 2014. It includes a fourth aim; To invest in FFI effectiveness. This target largely focuses on internal systems and processes, relevant data from the annual reporting process plus additional information on key changes has been provided in this report. Further information pertaining to this can be found in our statutory accounts or is available upon request.

Aim 2014-2018 Sub-Aims FFI Approaches 2014-2018 1: To deliver effective conservation of threatened habitats and species

1.1: Deliver locally-led conservation of threatened habitats

• Safeguard protected areas • Support community conservancies • Bring new areas under conservation

management • Secure biodiversity within agricultural

landscapes • Enable adaptation to climate change

1.2: Secure threatened species populations as flagships

• Tackle illegal wildlife trade • Safeguard critical populations of target species

1.3: Extend protection of marine and coastal ecosystems

• Support marine protected areas • Encourage technical, policy and business

support for marine and coastal conservation 2: To shape decisions within society to benefit biodiversity

2.1: Embed biodiversity into private sector decision making

• Encourage extractive industries to have net positive impact on biodiversity

• Encourage agribusiness to integrate biodiversity

• Encourage financial and investment sectors to support biodiversity

2.2: Enable governments to take development decisions to conserve biodiversity

• Undertake ecosystem service valuation • Engage with green economy and natural

capital efforts • Enable improved spatial planning for

infrastructure and agricultural development 2.3: Encourage individuals and communities to take decisions that maintain biodiversity

• Strengthen land tenure and rights for engaged local communities

• Strengthen incentives for local conservation • Make biodiversity case to consumers

3: To empower individuals and organisations to lead innovative conservation action

3.1: Harness technology for conservation • Engage with horizon scanning across different sectors

• Encourage take-up of innovative technologies in conservation

3.2: Support development of conservation leaders and innovators

• Support tertiary training of future leaders • Support individual leaders in post

3.3: Support access to funding and capacity for local level conservation

• Provide direct support to priority local partner organisations

• Make online training and tools available to local conservation organisations globally

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4: To invest in FFI effectiveness

4.1: Strengthen FFI systems and processes

• Harmonise and invest in global FFI systems including financial and information systems

• Strengthen project cycle assessment of opportunity and risk

4.2: Foster culture of learning and knowledge sharing

• Implement monitoring system pegged to explicit ‘theories of change’

• Increase investment in documenting learning and a linking to policy and practice

• Develop tools to support collaborative learning and knowledge management

4.3: Ensure FFI attracts, retains and benefits from high calibre staff

• Further develop Human Resources function and training of managers in HR processes

• Leverage training and professional development opportunities through collaborations

4.4: Secure diversified, resilient income streams

• Invest to maintain a balance between statutory, corporate and individual sources of income

• Increase proportion of unrestricted funds • Develop greater resilience through geographical

distribution of income streams • Develop new sectors and approaches for

informed philanthropy

As well as assessing impact (i.e. the effectiveness of our conservation), we also capture information on the extent and scope of delivery (i.e. the amount and range of conservation work we have conducted over the past year). The conservation reporting process also collects important insights about what has and hasn’t worked in different projects, and ensures that this information is shared across different levels of the organisation. The Conservation Report represents the aggregation of information collated from 158 3 annual reports from across the organisation – representing some 93% of FFI projects. All subsequent figures and analysis within this report is based on the 158 projects we received reporting from. The information collected from the annual reports has many uses – in terms of helping us to track the scale and efficacy of our global operations, informing the learning process for adaptive management by project teams and FFI management, sharing of information between teams internally, meeting governance requirements, input to tailored fundraising initiatives, providing content for external communications and various FFI publications. This report is structured relative to the four Aims and Targets of the 2014-2018 Business Plan, and also reports against other key approaches defined in our mission statement and strategy. 3 150 Annual Reports were received, and additional information was extracted from other reports relating to a further eight projects. Our aim is to extend coverage to 100% of projects, but for various operational reasons this is not always possible.

Credit: Jeremy Holden/FFI

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FFI’s key approaches in 2014

1. FFI’s strategy puts partnership at the forefront of our way of working. • In 2014 we collaborated with over 550 other organisations. • Of these 293 were considered ‘primary partners’ with close working relationships (see Figure 1). • 67% of our projects were field-based, working on-the-ground with partners.

2. FFI’s mission indicates our commitment to take a people-centred approach to biodiversity conservation, and to understand and address the needs and rights of local communities in our conservation programmes. • In 2014 96% of relevant field projects made efforts to engage with communities, build community governance

or contributed to sustainable livelihoods. • Through these projects some 598 communities or villages were consulted, engaged or supported through our

projects. Over 40 of our projects directly contributed to the development of sustainable livelihood projects; these benefited some 8500 people directly and a further 29,328 indirectly. Sustainable livelihood activities generated income of over $1,081,525 within target communities. Further figures are provided in the table below:

National NGOs/CBOs

Government Agencies

Academic Instituations

Businesses

International NGOs

Other

Figure 1: The balance of our engagement with 293 different primary partners in 2014

Communities involved in improving local planning or governance 203 Local Community Based Organisations established or supported 114 Community members interviewed or consulted 2791 Community members receiving livelihoods training 5992 Microcredit funds disbursed $71,930 Jobs created within local communities 124 Direct and indirect beneficiaries of sustainable livelihood projects 37,828

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3. FFI’s mission indicates our commitment to use sound science. In practice this means that we try to underpin conservation decision making with the best available information wherever possible, be it generated by others or by ourselves. • In 2014 92 projects reported how they undertook some form of survey, monitoring or research. These projects

supported some 902 different surveys or monitoring programmes, and a further 36 studies were completed (Figure 2).

• As a result of project-based research 15 articles were published in peer-reviewed journals and 15 in other

places. • The information generated through these surveys, monitoring and research activities directly informs our

conservation planning and subsequent actions; 66 projects specifically reported how they had used such information to refine their conservation planning, and of these 54 were also able to describe how their results had been used to influence wider policy and decision making processes.

• We have also assisted the sharing of scientific knowledge through our scientific journal Oryx (which published 69 peer-reviewed papers this year), and through our support to the Cambodian Journal of Natural History.

Figure 2: Surveys, monitoring and research activities in 2014 (n=938)

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FFI’s way of working is powered by local partnerships, engagement with communities of all types and by teams of highly capable on-the-ground staff. We asked project managers why they felt their projects had been successful over the last year, and the diagram below summarises the weight they placed on different words and phrases in their responses.

Figure 3. Word collage of the reasons why FFI project managers think their projects are a success. Words generated from aggregation of all annual report answers to the question of ‘why is your project a success?’ The size of words is proportional to the number of times each word was used to answer this question. Word colour and position are random.

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Activities and impact in 2014

The information presented below has been assessed against the three main Aims of the FFI Business Plan. This assessment has been communicated in three ways: a. Activities undertaken – What we did. A summary of the extent (amount) and range of conservation activities

undertaken in 2014, b. Outcomes and Impacts - What we achieved. A snapshot of collective progress towards achieving observable

conservation impact (Box 1), c. Examples- A collation of detailed descriptions from project teams, which are intended to bring a real flavour

for what activities, and successes, actually look like on the ground.

Aim 1: To deliver effective conservation of threatened habitats and species a) Activities undertaken in 2014

Delivering locally-led conservation of threatened habitats FFI works to deliver conservation of habitats through a number of mechanisms, our core approach is through providing direct support to projects to support management of existing protected areas and to bring areas under conservation management: • 70 projects worked directly on management of habitats or protected areas. • We worked at 327 sites in 2014, of which 231 were new or established protected areas (Figure 4 overleaf) and

96 do not yet have a conservation designation.

Box 1: Impact Chains

It often takes many years of concerted effort to achieve a noticeable conservation impact, such as species recovery or habitat response. We use generic ‘impact chains’ to track progress towards reaching these long-term goals.

An impact chain describes the general pathway of change that you would expect to see on the way to achieving ultimate conservation impacts (see Figure 5). By articulating each step in a long-term process of change, it is possible to assess progress towards achieving the desired end result of visible conservation impact.

There is good evidence that project outcomes that indicate achievement of early steps in the chain are strong predictors of conservation impact (Kapos et al. 2009). This approach then allows us to use evidence of short-term project outcomes to provide a snapshot of cumulative progress towards ultimate conservation impact.

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Figure 4: Balance of our engagement within different types of protected area in 2014 (n=231).

• In 2014 we helped to deliver direct conservation efforts within 16.3 million hectares of important habitats, and this work resulted in conservation influence4 over a total area of 27.7 million hectares.

• In 2014 we worked to bring at least 1 million hectares under conservation management (through supporting the creation of new reserves or community management areas).

• A range of management activities were supported at the sites we worked at, as summarised in the table below:

FFI also works to secure biodiversity within agricultural landscapes: • In 2014 four projects were focused on working to improve the management of biodiversity within agricultural

landscapes, one designed to support companies to consider and manage and monitor biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes, and three at site level with bespoke interventions to mitigate the impacts of specific agricultural operations.

Further to this we recognise climatic instability as a growing threat across land and seascapes. Reacting to this we engage on climate change issues from two angles – mitigation (preventing climate changing happening, mainly through a focus on prevention of emissions from forest loss) and adaptation (ensuring our project sites consider actions needed to reduce the impacts of climate change on both biodiversity and local communities): • In 2014 eight projects focused directly on climate change mitigation and forest protection through the

development of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) projects or mechanisms • In addition eight projects focused specifically on climate change adaptation issues at site level. These contributed

to the development of five climate adaptation plans.

4 Conservation influence may be apparent in many different ways, where our engagement in an area may be less direct. For example, we know that our presence in a specific site influences management and/or land-use decisions for a much larger area. In addition, if we give a grant for emergency intervention at a World Heritage Site through the RRF, we do not consider this a direct conservation engagement, but recognise that that emergency assistance has influenced the conservation of that site.

Sites where we supported on the ground enforcement or protection 97 Rangers supported or employed across our projects 360 Site-based management plans produced 36 Sites where habitat restoration has been undertaken 36 Sites where invasive species control has been undertaken 18

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Securing threatened species populations as ‘flagships’ • In 2014, 45 of our projects were focused specifically on species conservation. • Our work directly supported the conservation of 55 priority species (see Annex 1) and an additional 120

species were identified as secondary conservation targets. These secondary species were not the primary focus of the project, but were species recognised to derive measurable benefits from the broader conservation work of the project or subject to targeted interventions.

• A range of management activities were supported in relation to threatened species, as summarised in the table below:

• In 2014 FFI partnered with six other international conservation NGOs and the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry through the United for Wildlife collaboration. This aims to create a global movement for conservation, initially focusing on reducing the impact of the illegal wildlife trade on critical wildlife populations. A number of FFI projects have a focus on illegal wildlife trade and we will be growing this and monitoring our impact over the coming years.

Extend protection of marine and coastal ecosystems • In 2014, 25 of our projects focused on the conservation of marine and coastal ecosystems. • We worked at 50 marine sites in 2014, of which 35 were new or established protected areas and 15 do not yet

have a conservation designation. • In 2014 we helped to deliver direct conservation efforts within 1.2 million hectares of important marine and

coastal habitats, and this work resulted in conservation influence over a total area of 4.5 million hectares. • As well as focused site support through marine protected areas, seven of our marine focused projects

engaged in technical, policy, community or business support of marine and coastal conservation through a range of activities and mechanisms.

Tree seedlings grown or planted 647,679 Threatened tree seedlings grown or planted 34,500 Turtle hatchlings produced/enabled to reach the sea 1,095,617 Species action plans produced 5

Credit: Jeremy Holden/FFI

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b) Outcomes and impacts – a snapshot in 2014 Delivering locally-led conservation of threatened habitats Figure 5 (below) shows our generic impact chain for our interventions which aim to secure and protect sites and associated habitats, along with an assessment of the outcomes achieved across all such projects operational in 2014. In support of our work to secure and protect sites, we also seek to understand the impact of our work on climate mitigation and adaptation. While it is too soon to expect to see outcomes from our adaptation planning activities, as by definition these are activities which will only pay off in the long term in terms of management of future risks, we are able to present a draft impact chain for REDD+ projects (see below). We engage on REDD mechanisms through REDD+, in the belief that reducing forest loss can provide a double benefit of emissions prevention and ensuring biodiversity protection. Thus the draft impact chain graphic for REDD+ projects links directly to outcomes seen through other forms of habitat protection. At this stage most of our projects are in early stages of development and cannot yet report significant outcomes.

Figure 5. Impact chain representing a series of outcomes in site and habitat protection. The total number of FFI’s target sites at each outcome level is detailed in the lower boxes. Sites are only counted once and assigned the highest level of outcome or impact reported by the end of 2014.

Figure 6. Impact chain representing a series of outcomes relating to work on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) from eight relevant projects. The total number of projects demonstrating each outcome level is detailed in the lower boxes. Projects are only counted once and assigned the highest level of outcome or impact reported by the end of 2014.

Insufficient information

Sites with evidence that habitat still in decline

Too soon to see results

Sites brought under conservation management

Sites with evidence of improved enforcement / protection

Sites showing evidence of habitat / biodiversity recovery

Sites with evidence of reduced threats

Number of sites: 68 76 44 51 59 28

1

Insufficient information

Negative impacts of REDD+ project

Too soon to see results

Increased protection / changed status of site

Habitat secure / biodiversity recovery / emissions prevented

Reduced threats to site / sustained carbon finance

REDD+ project accredited and adopted

Number of

projects 2 4 3 0 0 0

0

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Securing threatened species populations as ‘flagships’ The figure below shows our generic impact chain for our interventions which aim to secure and recover populations of threatened species, along with an assessment of the outcomes achieved across all such projects operational in 2014. Extend protection of marine and coastal ecosystems Figure 8 (below) shows our generic impact chain for our interventions which aim to secure and protect sites and associated habitats in marine and coastal systems, along with an assessment of the outcomes achieved across all such projects operational in 2014.

Figure 7. Impact chain representing a series of outcomes in species conservation interventions. The total number of FFI’s target species at each outcome level is detailed in the lower boxes. Species are only counted once and assigned the highest level of outcome or impact reported by the end of 2014. Where two projects on the same species are reaching contrasting outcomes, the allocation is divided.

Figure 8. Impact chain representing a series of outcomes in site and habitat protection in marine and coastal ecosystems. The total number of FFI’s target sites at each outcome level is detailed in the lower boxes. Sites are only counted once and assigned the highest level of outcome or impact reported by the end of 2014.

Insufficient information

Species population still in decline

Too soon to see results

Species with evidence of improved enforcement / protection

Species showing evidence of recovery

Species with evidence of reduced threats

Number primary species

12 4 19 9 10

1

Number secondary

species 18.5 23.5 36.5 14.5 25

0

Insufficient information

Sites with evidence that habitat still in decline

Too soon to see results

Sites brought under conservation management

Sites with evidence of improved enforcement / protection

Sites showing evidence of habitat / biodiversity recovery

Sites with evidence of reduced threats

Number of sites: 0 14 9 11 6 10

0

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c) Examples of activities and successes from 2014 The quotes below are drawn directly from the 2014 Annual Reports and represent an illustration of some of the developments and successes achieved by our projects over the last year. Delivering locally-led conservation of threatened habitats In Liberia, despite the fact that progress slowed as a result of the Ebola outbreak, the East Nimba Nature Reserve is

now a fully recognised Nature Reserve with a pioneering community co-management agreement in place, the first of its kind in Liberia. Kathryn Shutt, Programme Manager, Liberia

In the Asia-Pacific Regional REDD+ and Community Carbon Pools Programme at the Vietnam pilot site remote sensing

analysis has demonstrated a decrease in the rate of degradation in the period since on-the-ground activities began in early 2012. FFI’s monitoring of forest cover change between 2012 and 2014 has measured a 25% decrease in the deforestation rate and 44% decrease in the forest degradation rate in Hieu Commune, in comparison to the average historical deforestation and degradation rate for Kon Plong District. This is an extremely encouraging finding as it implies that real measurable differences in the rates of deforestation and degradation can be found during the development stages of a REDD+ project, before official validation and verification have taken place. Rob Harris, Project Manager, Cambodia Country Programme.

In Indonesia, our work to improve watershed management through the restoration and protection of a critical watershed relating to the operation of a British America Tobacco subsidiary in Lombok has shown to be successful native tree planting, from 110 tree/ha to 400 tree/ha has enriched the biodiversity and ecosystem services of this forest and the fact that communities in 21 villages are actively engaged in afforestation with native trees is increasing native forest habitat. In some of these villages, improved livelihoods from agroforestry and carbon PES, coupled with multi-stakeholder collaboration on forest management (including enabling legislation and forest patrols) ensures greater protection of a wider area of forest, including conservation forest, that would have been threatened by mismanagement and encroachment. Adam Aziz, Collaborative Forest Management Technical Advisor, Indonesia.

In our work to identify an economically viable approach for farmers to manage their properties in ways that help maintain and/or restore biodiversity and ecosystem services in Brazil at an individual farm level, the deep buy-in of partner farmers will ensure that the small areas restored under the project will be maintained. However, at a regional scale, we have yet to achieve scale-up that will result in improving the conservation status of the Araucaria Forests. Steven Lowe, Programme Manager, Agricultural Landscapes.

In Kenya the Northern Rangelands Trust has now effectively re-established a wildlife habitat of approximately 3.1 million ha from 60,000ha in 2007. Through FFI’s support, and that of other partners, resilience of conservancies has continued to improve thus enabling them to more effectively conserve natural resources, secure peace and transform livelihoods. Josephine Nzilani, Programme Officer, East Africa and Rob Brett, Senior Technical Specialist, Africa.

In the Zarand Landscape Corridor in Romania, the Ranger team and the Gendarmerie anti-poaching Unit were formed in 2014 and began patrolling the project area. 46 snares were removed, with one operation to remove snares resulted in an individual being apprehended for deploying snares and the matter is now being followed up by the police. The evidence gathered by the Rangers and Gendarmerie Unit is critical for this case. In addition management rights (custodianship) over a critical site within the corridor, Zarandul de Est Natura 2000 site, was secured in March for 10 years, by our partners the Zarand Association (AZ) in collaboration with FFI. Due to the assessment done and recommendations provided by AZ, logging requests submitted to the custodian have had to be revised to comply with Forestry norms, this has prevented unsustainable logging activities being carried out, helping to maintain the integrity of the forest habitat within the Zarandul de Est Natura 2000 site. Suzanne Tom, Programme Manager, Eurasia.

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In Myanmar, in the Pauk Sa Mountain Reserved Forest, a total of 530 acres of community forestry area was established to start agroforestry to reduce impact on natural forest. Village conservation group members agreed not to expand their slash and burn agriculture area to the natural forest area, committing only to use their old slash and burn fields, which will be supported through permaculture development, and have also agreed to stop hunting threatened wildlife species in the core conservation area. The villagers stopped cutting the primary forest according to the agreement in 2014. Therefore, no primary forest was reduced in 2014. Ngwe Lwin, Forest Conservation Coordinator, Myanmar.

In Belize, our partners Ya’axche Conservation Trust has continued to deliver effective management of the Golden Stream Corridor Preserve and Bladen Nature Reserve, retaining and strengthening its 10-person management team and underpinning enforcement activities with a strong monitoring programme to inform adaptive management. Julio Bernal, Senior Programme Manager, Americas and Caribbean.

In Tanzania, our work to support conservation and land-use processes Ntakata forest/habitat is now being sustainably managed, under the control of self-conservation driven village governments with a ratified Forest Management Plan. The Forest area is now legally owned by Village Government of Mgambazi and Lugonesi, they have certificate of village land. Josephine Nzilani, Programme Officer, East Africa.

In Cambodia, the Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT) score for the Central Cardamoms Protected Forest has increased year on year through our work on the HARVEST project. With a maximum available score of 97, the METT score for the Central Cardamoms Protected Forest in 2012 was measured at 48, increasing to 58 in 2013 and 63 in early 2014, which indicates that overall effectiveness of the management is increasing and leading to greater capacity for protection of the protected area. Rob Harris, Rob Harris, Project Manager, Cambodia Country Programme.

FFI is the only conservation organisation working ‘on the ground’ in South Sudan, and with the Wildlife Service and communities in remote sites. Simply the fact that the state authorities and population know that FFI is continuing to work there has a positive affect, and through this work is providing opportunities for community members; the Game Reserves in particular are more secure. Foot patrols during the year have witnessed reduced levels of poaching and human encroachment inside the reserves. Adrian Garside, Project Coordinator, South Sudan.

In Indonesia our work with communities in the buffer zone of Kerinci Seblat National Park successfully facilitated the

establishment of three Customary Forests (496.5 ha) and proposed 10 Village Forest (32,107 ha) and four Customary Forest (294.98 ha). Currently the project works in 30 villages (22 Village Forest and eight Customary Forest) and an area of reach 59,562ha. In 2014 13 villages completed Village/Customary Forest Management Group (VFMG/CFMG) and General Village/Customary Forest Management Plans (GVFMP/GCFMP), also eight villages completed participatory land-use mapping. There are small scale examples of direct impact on biodiversity status from the result of community forest patrols. For example, illegal logging, encroachment and illegal mining in Durian Rambun, Lubuk Birah and Lubuk Beringin villages was halted as a result of the problem being identified during a patrol. Ibnu Adrian, Project Leader, Indonesia.

In Myanmar, the protection status of Tanintharyi and Lenya Proposed National Parks is stronger as FFI has now engaged with local communities on the issue, revised the boundary to exclude customary village lands, and been given verbal acknowledgement the local ethnic armed group that they agree with the idea of the park and will support its designation following a peace settlement. Biodiversity surveys we have provided a strong biological justification for the park on international conservation grounds and the government is keen to move ahead with designation as soon as politically feasible. We are proud of all we have achieved so far, but in particular, village boundary mapping has helped shape our understanding of the landscape and the options for protection of core areas through community management, while also empowering the communities to defend their rights. Mark Grindley, Tanintharyi Forest Programme Manager, Myanmar.

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Securing threatened species populations as ‘flagships’

In 2014 in the Caribbean the world population of Antiguan racers reached 1,130 individuals compared to only 50 when the project began in 1995. This entire population is in the wild and currently occupies four small islands, where we have successfully kept 100% of the Antiguan racer’s current range free from rats and other harmful alien invasive species. This ongoing work to control alien invasive mammals has been a major factor in enabling the Antiguan racer population to increase, and has also had tangible benefits for other species including 5-fold to 30-fold increases in seabird populations on the project’s rat-free islands since 1995. Jenny Daltry, Senior Conservation Biologist.

In Vietnam Tonkin snub-nosed monkey populations and their habitats in Khau Ca and Tung Vai forests are well-

protected. The Tonkin snub-nosed monkey population in Khau Ca is increasing annually. It is estimated there were eight to ten Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys born in 2014. In Tung Vai no hunting of Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys was recorded in 2014. Le Khac Quyet, Programme Research Manager, Vietnam.

Surveys of Niassa Reserve in Mozambique indicate that substantially lower incidences of recent and fresh elephant

carcasses within the area managed through FFI’s project in Chuilexi Conservancy compared to the rest of the Reserve. Whilst the threat of poaching is immediate and very real (a 50% decrease has been seen in the Reserve’s elephant population in the last four years) Chuilexi probably now holds the largest concentrations of elephant remaining within the Reserve. Matt Rice, Chuilexi Project Coordinator, Mozambique.

In Kazakhstan, the most significant achievement this year has been that not only has the Ustyurt plateau landscape and saiga antelope project provided four sniffer dogs and associated training to Kazakh customs officers but that very quickly the dogs made two significant finds of illegal saiga horn. This sets a great precedent for the future of this activity and a great gain in the fight against the illegal wildlife trade. Paul Hotham, Regional Director, Eurasia.

Credit: Anna Lushchekina

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In our work to conserve threatened trees in northern Vietnam the biggest achievement is of the project has been getting the community conservation teams up and running and carrying out monitoring (and informal protection). Following survey results from 2013-14, the Center for Plant Conservation, (our partner) is starting to make better use of the results coming from the project in order to guide conservation efforts. The project is slowly moving from a first phase (very much focussed on information gathering), towards more effective adaptive management for these key species, led by a local NGO. David Gill, Project Manager, Global Trees Campaign and Ben Rawson, Country Director, Vietnam.

In Madagascar the planting of Baobab species is boosting wild populations. Throughout the duration of the project, a

total of 3,063 baobab seedlings have been planted (800 Grandidier’s, 2,221 Diego’s and 42 Perrier’s). Planting of Diego’s Baobab in northern Madagascar had an average survival rate of 87% suggesting wild populations may be boosted in the future. Victoria Price, Programme Officer, Conservation Science and Design.

In Cambodia on our work with Siamese crocodiles our data indicates that the population of crocodiles is stable. In many areas the population is breeding, but still at low levels. There were no deaths or reports of poaching in 2014. While Siamese crocodiles still face the threat of poaching in the wild, and entanglement in fishing gear, mostly by newcomers to the areas, these problems have been greatly reduced within the local communities as a result of our work. Our community crocodile wardens help to protect crocodiles from these threats at the three key breeding sites. We were able to boost the wild populations by releasing 8 juveniles from Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center in January 2014 into our pilot release site in Chhay Reap. We also released 20 head-started 1-2 year old hatchlings into the Areng river valley in August 2014. Jackson Frechette, Flagship Species Manager, Cambodia & Sam Han, Project Manager, Cambodia Crocodile Conservation Programme.

In Kenya, the Northern Rangeland’s Trust (NRT) security efforts in community conservancies continued to have a positive impact on wildlife across rangelands of northern Kenya. For instance, since 2009, elephant poaching had increased dramatically to peak in 2012 cross much of Africa, but coordinated efforts between NRT community conservancies and mobile ranger patrols have been extremely effective in restricting elephant poaching in conservancies from a high of 108 in 2012 to only 27 in 2014. Josephine Nzilani, Programme Officer, East Africa.

In our work on human-elephant conflict in Cambodia, there has not been any killing, or even injuring of an elephant in retaliation for crop raiding in the areas in which we support communities. In the Cardamom Mountains, there has not been a reported poaching incident since 2002, and our camera trapping data indicates that even isolated sub-populations are breeding. Jackson Frechette, Flagship Species Manager, Cambodia & Neang Thy, Project Manager, Cambodian Elephant Conservation Group.

In Vietnam, one year of continuous monitoring of one population of Cat Ba langur has demonstrated that many previous assumptions revolving around population stagnation are untrue, and the population is making a slow increase. Ben Rawson, Country Director, Vietnam.

By the end of 2014, the population of black rhinos has increased to 105 animals, with 20 southern white rhinos and three northern white rhinos. The Ol Pejeta black rhino population is the largest in East Africa, and the largest population of eastern black rhinos (in historic range) in Africa. Rob Brett, Senior Technical Specialist, Africa.

In Indonesia our work in Kerinci Seblat National Park has shown tiger poaching (active or recently active snares detected) reduced sharply in south-west of the focus area of the park, likely as a consequence of law enforcement against a local trader in January 2014 and a group of organised tiger poachers in mid-2013. In addition camera trap monitoring advised that tiger densities in the core of the focus area were stable and unchanged from 2011 levels (note one tiger camera trapped was subsequently poached). In addition the project has facilitated meetings between the Director of Kerinci Seblat National Park and four provincial police authorities (South Sumatra, West Sumatra, Bengkulu, Jambi) resulting in formal signing off of Indonesia’s first Serious Illegal Wildlife Crime Law Enforcement Network. Debbie Martyr, Field Coordinator - Kerinci Tiger Protection Project, Indonesia.

In China, one new born Francois’ langur was found in Nongdeng community area. We got the first photo of a new-born Francois’ Langur (as far as we knew). Song Qingchuan, Project Assistant, China.

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Extend protection of marine and coastal ecosystems In northern Kenya, coastal conservancies carried out at least two anti-poaching and security activities each quarter

targeting marine habitats and wildlife including sea turtles, dolphins, water birds, and illegal cutting of mangrove and charcoal burning. The rangers discovered 10 carcasses of sea turtles and managed to apprehend the culprit in collaboration with Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers. Significant progress was also made in combating the illegal logging of mangroves in Pate Island with two culprits taken to court and several others reported to the Kenya Forest Service and taken to police custody. Josephine Nzilani, Programme Officer, East Africa.

In Cambodia, 2014 a marked increase in activity of Community Fisheries was evidenced through more active patrolling; 221 patrols took place in three Community Fisheries between April and December 2014 – in some cases there were no patrols prior to 2014 and the initiation of project support. The introduction of Field Officers from Provincial Fisheries Authority is thought to have improved the effectiveness of Community Fisheries enforcement efforts (e.g. increased confiscations of illegal gears) and to have strengthened patrols as a deterrent to illegal activities. Berry Mulligan, Project Manager Coastal and Marine Conservation Project, Cambodia.

In Turkey the ecological monitoring since the start of the project clearly shows increases in indicator fish biomass within No Fishing Zones. Sophie Benbow, Projects Manager, Eurasia.

Support to the Environmental Markets team has helped to secure targeted support for the Eurasia team (with specific inputs to marine ecosystem service work in Cape Verde), and also to enable the team to continue to explore innovative financing options relevant to the marine environment (e.g. blue bonds etc.). Nicola Frost, Head of Marine.

On the southern Kenyan Coast FFI and our partner the East African Wildlife Society (EAWLS) are responsible for setting up eight of the 19 beach management units (BMUs- community based organisations for fisheries co-management) in Kwale County. In 2014 successful consultative meetings were held in two of these sites with BMUs and communities to facilitate the completion of the two management plans for a specially designated Community Conserved Areas (CCAs), one of which has been approved and is now legally recognized; the first CCA to have an approved management plan on the south Kenya coast. Josephine Nzilani, Programme Officer, East Africa.

Credit: J P Morieras/FFI

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In the Philippines, the community has improved its knowledge, attitudes, skills and habits on the importance of coral reefs to their livelihoods, by practising sustainable fisheries through the development of community-based Marine Protected Areas and enforcing the fisheries code of the Philippines by volunteering and undergoing fish wardens training. These community behaviours and actions have resulted in community cohesion on marine conservation and good governance of indigenous peoples lands through improved and accepted status of indigenous peoples rights over ancestral domains. Ton Bringas, Programme Officer, FFI Philippines.

In Myanmar, the engagement of local fishing communities and positive response from these groups as well as the department of fisheries to pilot co-managed marine resources is an encouraging step forward and makes the goal of sustainable fisheries management more realistic. Rob Howard, Marine Programme Advisor, Myanmar.

The records of nesting in the five years of the project have positioned Padre Ramos, Nicaragua as one of the two largest nesting sites for hawksbills in the Eastern Pacific recorded to date, hosting 40% of all nesting hawksbills in the Eastern Pacific ocean. The incentive scheme for ex-poachers at this site has helped secure a turn-around from 100% of hawksbill nests being poached, to 95% of nests protected. Velkiss Gadea, Marine Turtle Programme Coordinator, Nicaragua.

In the UK, learning that Selfridges was using the Good Scrub Guide to inform internal purchasing practices was a significant achievement this year. Selfridges is a high-end, luxury retailer that has significant influence over its suppliers and as such, FFI’s successful engagement with Selfridges will have a much wider impact. Tanya Cox, Projects Manager, Marine Plastics.

We have done an impressive job to get thriving marine activities going in each of the regions. In a short space of time, we already have a lot to report and significant achievements – above and beyond what was expected. I think we should collectively feel very proud that this has taken shape in the way it has. Nicola Frost, Head of Marine.

Aim 2: To shape decisions within society to benefit biodiversity a) Activities undertaken in 2014 Embedding biodiversity into private sector decision making In 2014, 64 projects reported engagement with the private sector in a wide range of forms, from receiving business funding or sponsorship, to engaging with local business initiatives, to trying to influence corporate decision making. One of the key focuses of this areas of work to improve the practices of those businesses that have the potential to pose the most harm to the environment by helping them to reduce their impacts and become market leaders with regard to biodiversity impact management, to this end we have engaged with 19 businesses. We also engage on initiatives which target financial institutions in using their lending power to improve management of natural capital. As well as working with businesses directly, we also engaged with 14 sectoral bodies who are able to influence business practice indirectly. Other aspects of our engagement with businesses in 2014 include:

Number of projects receiving financial support from business 23 Number of projects working with business operations to improve biodiversity management practices 25 Number of multi-national businesses we partnered with 6 Number of national subsidiaries of these multi-nationals we worked with 14 Number of businesses engaged on micro-plastics and micro-plastic advocacy 13

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Enabling governments to take decisions to conserve biodiversity • In 2014, 39 projects engaged with policy makers in various ways and our projects contributed to the

development or drafting of at least 11 laws, regulations or government level strategic plans with implications for conservation and worked to influence a further 40 policies.

• Across our projects, 124 of our 293 primary partners are government agencies. • We have also worked with governments to support approaches to spatial planning that consider biodiversity.

In particular our work in Myanmar has included training in approaches to spatial planning and technical support and will contribute to the country’s first land use planning legislation.

Encouraging individuals and communities to take decisions that maintain biodiversity • In 2014, 76 projects supported some form of conservation awareness or outreach activity. • In total these projects reached at least 296,824 people with conservation messages. • Details of specific awareness activities conducted across our projects are summarised in the table below:

• Over the last year the number of followers of FFI’s Twitter feed has increased by 25% to 17,381; likes for FFI’s Facebook page increased by almost 250% to 88,257.

• A significant highlight in our media coverage was on the 27-28 October 2014 when, 42865 people saw our content due to an engaging red panda camera trap video.

• In addition, further details of FFI’s central outreach work in 2014 are included in the table below:

• Our journal Oryx published 69 articles in four issues in 2014. This information was disseminated to over 6,612 institutional subscribers as through both printed and digital subscriptions.

• Twelve of the 2014 articles received coverage in the media through either, press releases, blogs or news coverage.

• There were a total of 103,940 full text views of Oryx articles and 1,034,015 views of abstracts online in 2014.

Number of community-focused awareness events 198 Communities receiving awareness or outreach 166 Community members receiving awareness or outreach 16,420 School children receiving outreach 13,572 Number of project-level media articles / blogs produced 67 Number of radio or TV shows/films/videos featuring project work 39 Number of project-level websites/social media pages in use 28 Projects producing awareness materials 22 Copies of awareness materials produced 36,471

People visiting the FFI website (unique page views) 654,117 Return rate of visits to the FFI website (unique page views) 226,197 FFI news stories 69 FFI blog posts 64

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b) Outcomes and impacts – a snapshot in 2014 Embedding biodiversity into private sector decision making A generalised impact chain has been developed to reflect the expected outcomes from our efforts change corporate approaches to considering biodiversity impacts in their decision making. This impact chain has two levels one representing expected behaviour change within key corporate partners, those companies with which we are working strategically to change the way they incorporate biodiversity decisions within their organisational structure (subsidiaries are considered as part of the wider corporation for the purposes of this analysis) and the other to represent expected behaviour change within key corporate players whose behaviour we hope to change through advocacy. The following figure (Figure 9) shows this generic impact chain along with an assessment of the outcomes achieved across from these projects based on the 2014 annual reports received. Enabling governments to take decisions to conserve biodiversity At present our impact chain tracking the results of policy engagement is relatively untested, and we recognise the time and effort taken to make policy change, particularly at national level. Furthermore in many cases it is very difficult to track the subsequent application of policy or legislation, or to attribute change to specific policy outcomes. However we recognise that the activities we undertake in developing, drafting and working to influence laws regulations and government plans are often crucial in underpinning the success or sustainability of other areas of work. This is an area on which we will work with teams to improve information capture and tracking.

Figure 9. Impact chain representing a series of outcomes from six substantive, multi-national corporate partnership engagements and 13 corporate advocacy engagements. The total number of businesses at each outcome level is detailed in the lower boxes. Businesses are only counted once and assigned the highest level of outcome or impact reported by the end of 2014.

Insufficient information

Business not changing its operations Too soon to

see results

Commitment to adopt procedures / change behaviour

Improved procedures for biodiversity management in place

Reduced threats / improved biodiversity outcomes

Improved biodiversity management / decision making implemented

Corporate partnership

engagements 0 0 2 2 2 0

0

Corporate advocacy

engagements 0 7 6 0 0 0

0

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The following diagram (Figure 10) illustrates our draft impact chain and responses recorded in 2014. Encourage individuals and communities to take decisions that maintain biodiversity At present it is difficult to disentangle the outcomes attributable to awareness-raising from those resulting from other forms of community engagement (such as involvement in planning or sustainable livelihoods activities). Thus these activities are grouped together when assessing outcomes reflecting behaviour change (towards more conservation-positive behaviours). Figure 11 below shows our generic impact chain for influencing behaviour change and developing pro-conservation behaviours, along with an assessment of the outcomes achieved across all such projects operational in 2013. This includes change resulting from outreach, community engagement and livelihood or other development support.

Figure 10. Impact chain representing a series of outcomes relating to policy and legislative change from 55 projects. The total number of projects demonstrating each outcome level is detailed in the lower boxes. Projects are only counted once and assigned the highest level of outcome or impact reported by the end of 2014.

Figure 11. Impact chain representing a series of outcomes expected from 74 relevant engagements working to develop pro-conservation behaviour change. The total number of projects at each outcome level is detailed in the lower boxes. Projects are only counted once and assigned the highest level of outcome or impact reported by the end of 2014.

Insufficient information

Negative biodiversity impacts of policy change precipitated by project

Too soon to see results

Legislation or policy actively applied / enforced

Attributable habitat/ biodiversity recovery

Changed behaviour / reduced threats

Policies, legislation or decisions changed

Number of

projects 3 27 17 8 0 0

0

Insufficient information

Negative impacts of outreach / livelihoods work

Too soon to see results

Changed attitudes or increasing support for conservation

Attributable habitat/ biodiversity recovery

Changed behaviour / reduced threats

Increased awareness or engagement

Number of

projects 21 3 20 22 8 0

0

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c) Examples of activities and successes from 2014 The quotes below are drawn directly from the 2014 Annual Reports and represent an illustration of some of the developments and successes achieved by our projects over the last year: Embedding biodiversity into private sector decision making

Through the Good Scrub Guide which was launched in 2013 we have continued to engage with UK brands about

the use of microplastics in personal care products. Engagement with brands over the last year has been successful. Brands have committed to a change in practice with increasing momentum over the past six months; cosmetic and retail trade associations have engaged with FFI on the issue, the public is supporting the need for change and several countries have begun to introduce legislative measures that prevent future use of microplastic ingredients. Tanya Cox, Projects Manager, Marine Plastics

Since 2006 FFI has been working with British American Tobacco (BAT) to develop and disseminate the Biodiversity Risk and Opportunity Assessment tool (BROA); in 2014 we have continued to support those using the tool as well as its dissemination. BROA has added to the conversation around corporate adoption of biodiversity risk assessment and sustainable agriculture in general and few other corporations conduct a regular risk assessment that explicitly focusses on biodiversity, so BAT is a leader in this regard. Steven Lowe, Programme Manager, Agricultural Landscapes

During 2014 we engaged with Repsol Peru, an energy company, to assess the ecosystem services within their

concession area around a gas pipeline development. We introduced a new methodology to assess and analyse community and company ecosystem service dependencies and impacts at the site level based on biodiversity and social baselines, proposed management actions to address potential impacts to the biodiversity and ecosystem services, and provided feedback into the company as a whole on how to strengthen their understanding and management of biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues. As a result Repsol Peru have developed a project to identify cumulative impacts to biodiversity and ecosystem services at site level using our recommendations and Repsol have invited us to propose a longer term partnership with them to implement at a wider scale the findings and recommendations made within our project. Helen Nyul, Senior Programme Manager, Business & Biodiversity.

Working to reduce pellet loss in the plastics industry, FFI has engaged directly with industry leaders and trade associations including British Plastic Federation (BPF) and PlasticsEurope to reinstate the issue of ongoing pellet loss on respective agendas. As a direct result of FFI’s engagement, the BPF has committed to injecting renewed energy into calling for all members to sign up to Operation Clean Sweep. The BPFs commitment was reinforced during the President’s speech at the 81st annual dinner this month and new text has since appeared on the BPF website to this effect. PlasticsEurope is also now in the process of aligning its approach/messaging behind tackling pellet loss with that of the BPF and vice versa. Tanya Cox, Projects Manager, Marine Plastics

Credit: Sarah Rakowski/FFI

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As part of our work with Anglo-American we have engaged at the very early stages of site exploration for an operational level project next to a Natura 2000 site. During 2014 we completed a Net Positive Impact Strategy for the site. Engaging at pre site development level is highly important in minimising impact and as far as we are aware there are no other examples of Finnish mining projects attempting to use IFC PS6 requirements to identify risks to critical habitat and find ways to mitigate that risk including the use of offsetting. We believe this project will open up the debate regarding offsetting within Finland, (which is currently not widely understood nor are there any policy drivers towards offsetting). It has made a real difference that our partners in this project are receptive to our inputs, acknowledge the gaps and are committed to addressing them. Helen Nyul, Senior Programme Manager, Business & Biodiversity.

Enabling governments to take decisions to conserve biodiversity In Kontum province Vietnam, decision makers and the Provincial Peoples Committee highly appreciated the Hieu

commune REDD model and politically supported FFI to replicate and scale it up. This can be regarded as a strong political commitment for REDD+ development by FFI in future. Dang Thanh Liem, National Project Manager, EU REDD Project, Vietnam.

In Portugal the ICNF (Portugal’s authority in nature conservation matters) concluded the ‘National Pact for the

Conservation of the Iberian Lynx in Portugal’ in 2014, which was an initial proposal of FFI partners Liga para a Protecção da Natureza (LPN). Since then, this pact has been signed by numerous other entities and individuals. These high profile meetings enabled LPN to influence national conservation policy and built awareness on the Lynx Programme’s work as well as the importance of other Commission members (e.g. national institutes, government, hunting and agriculture associations, universities). Paul Hotham, Regional Director, Eurasia.

In Cameroon, surveys of the African zebrawood (Critically Endangered) and follow-up monitoring and logging patrols informed an executive order from the SW Cameroon Regional Delegate to place a moratorium on its exploitation of the species from the Region. It is expected that the moratorium will be signed in March 2015. David Gill, Project Manager, Global Trees Campaign.

In southern Kenya, by-laws have been developed for all Community Conservation Areas (CCAs). By-laws and the management plan have been endorsed by the Kenyan Government for one area. The government is considering incorporating CCAs as marine areas under active management as required by 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity and CCAs and areas under community stewardship are being highlighted in species and habitat management plans. The government is tapping into the potential of these areas in enhancing the collective ecosystem benefits. Formation of new Marine Protected Areas has proven to be hard, the CCA model offers a suitable alternative. Josephine Nzilani, Programme Officer, East Africa.

The President of Costa Rica has confirmed in a decree, through a process of dialogue and technical analysis to produce a new policy on sustainable shrimp exploitation in 2015. This may involve complete elimination of bottom trawling or its modification and restriction to certain zones. Rob Benstead-Smith, Regional Director, Americas & Caribbean.

In Myanmar the protection status of Tanintharyi and Lenya Proposed National Parks is stronger as FFI has now engaged with local communities on the issue, revising the boundary to exclude customary village lands, and have been given verbal acknowledgement by the local ethnic armed group that they agree with the idea of the park and will support its designation following a peace settlement. Mark Grindley, Tanintharyi Forest Programme Manager, Myanmar.

Following the launch of the Australian Good Scrub Guide in May 2014 at an event hosted by FFI President, HRH Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands, the New South Wales Environment Minister the right honourable Rob Stokes publicly declared the need to introduce legislation in Australia banning the use of microplastic ingredients in personal care products. This act can be directly attributed to the work of FFI in Australia and has led to the establishment of the NSW environmental working group which is starting the process of recommending legislative changes. Tanya Cox, Projects Manager, Marine Plastics.

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Encourage individuals and communities to take decisions that maintain biodiversity One of the most encouraging anecdotes about social change and changes in behaviour and attitudes relates to an

incident at the historic leatherback nesting beach at Las Penitas (near Isla Juan Venado, Leon, where FFI used to run project activities). For the last five years, no nesting of this species at this site has been reported. However, this season (in December) a leatherback turtle came to nest on the beach, amongst many people who were celebrating a national festival. This generated discussions among those present that they should leave the nest alone. A group from the Nicaragua Red Cross arrived and formed a human chain, along with people who were on the beach, to guard the turtle and its nest. It was amazing to see people respecting the human chain and the turtle. The eggs laid were transferred to the local hatchery. Whilst the Nicaraguan Red Cross has not directly taken part in any training delivered by the project to date, many of its lifeguards are young people who have participated in school lectures or been exposed to the national turtle conservation awareness campaign. This incident gives a clear example of changing attitudes and behaviour amongst the next generation in Nicaragua. Velkiss Gadea, Marine Turtle Programme Coordinator, Nicaragua.

Our work in Myanmar improved the levels of understanding of the status of the reefs within the Myiek archipelago and the role of MPAs for government, private sector, and universities. The workshop included support from the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Rural Development to establish several locally managed marine areas. As an output to the workshop participants agreed on important next steps including piloting and establishing MPAs and LMMAs in key sites, with the workshop recommending La Ngann Island Group as the first site to be established. Rob Howard, Marine Programme Advisor, Myanmar.

In China, local people’s increased awareness of forest, grassland and wildlife projects enabled them to protect an area of 10,000 ha. The local conservation group took photos of snow leopards, blue sheep and other species for the first time with their monitoring skills and camera use. Through this, they have obtained valuable knowledge about species habitat to educate local people for conservation. Tibetan Community Grasslands Project Team.

The education and awareness raising activities of the project served as a facilitating factor in the Indigenous peoples allotting areas of their fishing ground for no-take zones, volunteering for enforcement activities (fish wardens), apportioning lands for bio-intensive gardening to support fish wardens and their families. Ton Bringas, Programme Officer, FFI Philippines.

In the Mentawai Islands in Indonesia preliminary KAP results show that 64% of respondents said clearing of forest for farmland is the biggest threat to the forest on Siberut Island; 94% of respondents feel that conservation and protection of the forest is important and respondents are in strong agreement with the concept of protecting the forest for future generations, and protecting the Mentawai culture. Conservation of Kloss’s Gibbon on the Mentawai Islands Project Team.

As a result of awareness raising in Cambodia, people now understand that Human-Elephant-Conflict occurs from part

of their need of forestland for settlement, agriculture and development and do not ask for compensation as this has happened in the past years. Jackson Frechette, Flagship Species Manager, Cambodia and Neang Thy, Project Manager, Cambodian Elephant Conservation Group.

Public support and awareness of the values of the offshore islands and their wildlife is now high. This is reflected in the frequent calls to the project office and radio, and the fact that many people are prepared to take a stand to protect the islands. Many of the tour operator crews and fishermen who regularly visit the offshore islands have also become stalwart supporters of this project. We have observed them voluntarily helping to clear up litter and warning visitors not to harm the wildlife. They also readily come to any meetings called by the project. Jenny Daltry, Senior Conservation Biologist.

The attendance at the WSSFC had a profound effect on the fishers whom attended. We have seen a leap in their motivation to work on sustainable fishing and create change within their communities. We have also seen their own personal growth as leaders within their communities. Even others within the community, particularly in Nicaragua, mention this conference as a turning point for the community of fishers in terms of their vision for improved marine management and the creation of a Marine Protected Area. Chelsea Combest-Friedman, Programme Manager (Marine), Americas & Caribbean.

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In Gökova Bay, Turkey, wider dissemination of the no-fishing-zone regulations has resulted in a decrease in the number of incidences of illegal activity by recreational boat owners and amateur fishers this year. Sophie Benbow, Projects Manager, Eurasia.

In Tanzania, Conservation education for village governments has enabled them to be good stewards and to play a more central role in conservation and in governing their natural resources. Villages have been supportive of the Village Land Forest Reserve establishment processes as evidenced by their setting aside of land for conservation, approval of the Village Land Forest Reserve establishment process and endorsing management plans. Josephine Nzilani, Programme Officer, East Africa.

Aim 3: To empower organisations and to lead innovative conservation action a) Activities undertaken in 2014 Supporting access to capacity for local level conservation In 2014, 107 projects reported undertaking some form of capacity building, conservation training or organisational support activity. • 274 organisations received some form of direct capacity development support, through organisational

strengthening (such as assistance with systems or governance), provision of equipment or infrastructure, training and/or mentoring or technical support in 2014. Breakdown of the types of support provided are illustrated in Figure 12.

• In 2014 some 7815 individuals received training relating to conservation or operating conservation organisations5, as a result of project activities. These included partner staff, students and members of local communities, this breakdown is shown in Figure 13.

5 This is in addition to 5992 people who received focused training to adapt or improve local livelihoods or develop new income skills (see section on Our Approaches).

Organisationaldevelopment

Provision of physicalresources

Training or mentoring ofstaff

Technical support

Figure 12. Breakdown of types of partner organisational support in 2014 (Note: some organisations were supported through multiple interventions).

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Partner staff

Community members

Students

Others

Figure 13. Breakdown of different groups of individuals receiving training 2013 (n=7815)

• 2014 saw the formal launch of the Capacity for Conservation website (www.capacityforconservation.org), an online hub which supports conservation organisations to develop their capacity and access support, significant growth in reach both reach and users in the last 12 months.

• A range of other capacity-related activities contributed to conservation delivery in 2014, these included:

Supporting development of conservation leaders and innovators • FFI is a key partner in the Masters degree in Conservation Leadership alongside University of Cambridge and

seven other international NGOs. Students on this course are usually well established conservation professionals representing NGOs and governmental organisations. The 2013-14 cohort of students was comprised of 20 students representing 20 countries. FFI directly supported six of these students to complete their three month work placements. These students were well established conservation professionals representing NGOs and governmental organisations.

2012-2013 2014

Individual users of capacityforconservation.org 105 505 Number of organisations using capacityforconservation.org 26 244 Number of countries using capacityforconservation.org 59 149 Number of resources downloaded from capacityforconservation.org

1,052 1,824

New management or governing organisations supported 36 Amount disbursed in conservation grants (Halcyon Land & Sea, Arcadia Marine, The Fondation Segré Conservation Fund at FFI, Flagship Species Fund, Rapid Response Facility and Global Trees Campaign)

$2.4 million

Conservation funding influenced (through reviewing of applications for Rufford , Prince Bernhard Nature Fund and Whitley)

$1.8 million

Grant applications reviewed 740

Credit: Jeremy Holden/FFI

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• In Cambodia the University Capacity Building project continued to deliver its two year Masters Programme in Biodiversity Conservation. During 2014 26 students were supported. Outputs during 2014 included the submission of 16 theses and the publication of 11 peer-review journal papers published by students and staff.

• In Liberia the first student field course in Ecological Sampling was successfully hosted in the Sapo Conservation Centre (SCC) in 2014. 11 students from the University of Liberia, Forestry Training Institute and Nimba County Community College participated.

• The Conservation Leadership Programme supported numerous conservation leaders and innovators through a variety of mechanisms in 2014 including; a training course for 23 award winners from 14 countries, a project planning and proposal writing course delivered in Ethiopia, two learning exchanges involving five alumni from the programme and three alumni networking events. Thirty three peer-reviewed scientific articles were published by CLP alumni in 2014.

• In addition FFI staff members continued to teach on a diverse range of conservation courses across the UK in 2014.

Harnessing technology for conservation • A horizon scanning exercise took place in 2014 involving FFI staff and representatives from 15 other

organisations. This resulted in a paper, A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2015, published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution in January 2015.

• FFI’s in-house GIS team supported 10 projects with bespoke spatial planning solutions. • 2014 saw the launch of FFI’s Conservation Labs initiative which was specifically designed to address the

limitations which prevent the effective use of technology in delivering more effective conservation through the creation of a cross-sector community with access to the right information, tools and resources to collaboratively develop and implement technology-enabled solutions to conservation challenges.

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b) Outcomes and impacts – a snapshot in 2014 This year we have included an outline generalised impact chain (Figure 14) for Supporting access to capacity for local level conservation, although limited data included within the Annual Reports doesn’t allow us to analyse this as effectively as we would like. We can however state that improved capacity/organisational effectiveness was reported within 25 organisations as a direct result of FFI support.

c) Examples of activities and successes from 2014 The quotes below are drawn directly from the 2014 Annual Reports and represent an illustration of some of the developments and successes achieved by our projects over the last year. Supporting access to capacity for local level conservation In Ometepe Biosphere Reserve in Nicaragua, at least 30 farming families are now more willing to use more

sustainable methods of crop and vegetable production, with more diversity and less pesticides. Farmers are now innovating on their own, including using more drought-resistant crops such as sorghum and yuca. There is also evidence of farmers having expanded the area of their farms on which they are practicing soil and water conservation practices. Such strategies are improving these families’ economic conditions and are being shared across the island. Farmers have created a network throughout their communities to advocate for the care of natural resources and to actively transfer their new, sustainable and biodiversity-friendly techniques to other farmers. This work is contributing to the aims of the Biosphere Reserve - where, as a discrete island system, it can become model for sustainable, climate-resilient development and biodiversity conservation throughout its natural ecosystems and agricultural landscapes. Alison Gunn, Programme Manager, Americas & Caribbean.

Following a fence-and-fine approach to nature conservation in the past, FFI has been able to pilot collaborative approaches to nature conservation in Indawgyi Wildlife Sanctuary in collaboration with the Forest Department under Myanmar’s new reform government. Indawgyi is Myanmar’s first protected area where the government has embarked on full consultation of local communities in the development of the management plan. Ngwe Lwin, Forest Conservation Coordinator, Myanmar.

Figure 14. Impact chain representing a series of outcomes expected from support to build conservation capacity and leadership among organisations, based on 86 relevant projects. The total number of projects at each outcome level is detailed in the lower boxes. Projects are only counted once and assigned the highest level of outcome or impact reported by the end of 2014. This does not include projects which reported improved capacity just within FFI teams.

Insufficient information

Negative impacts / no response from capacity building work

Too soon to see results

Skills applied and/or organisational systems /governance improved

Reduced threats and/or improved biodiversity outcomes

Implementation of good / improved biodiversity management

Increased organisational / individual effectiveness / independence

Number of

projects 18 4 40 14 9 1

0

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In the Zarand Landscape project in Romania, through training received the rangers are now qualified to respond to incidents involving wildlife and in the last quarter of 2014, they responded to three incidents involving bear, where they were able to support and advise the statutory agencies in the handling of such issues. Suzanne Tom, Programme Manager, Eurasia.

In China, three patrolling and monitoring work plans for 2015 were produced for three Nature Reserves with different objectives based on their current status and available resources. It was the first time that the rangers participated in creating the patrolling and monitoring work plan. During the activities we found the rangers show higher motivation. Song Qingchuan, Project Assistant, China.

In Antigua our partners, the Environmental Awareness Group, was able to successfully lead the operations to eradicate alien mammals from three islands in 2014 with far less direct input by FFI than in previous years. Also, most of the wildlife monitoring activities in 2014 were led by local volunteers who had been trained by FFI in the past, and they in turn trained and supervised more students and volunteers. Jenny Daltry, Senior Conservation Biologist.

In Tajikistan, Foresters of Muminabad Forestry Management Unit implemented monitoring for threatened and endangered tree species at Childukhtaron reserve. Twenty monitoring plots are identified and collected data. Five of the plots have now been fenced, which should promote increased seedling survival and hence regeneration – this will form part of the monitoring in future years. Liesje Birchenough, Programme Manager, Eurasia.

In south Kenya community empowerment (through Beach Management Units- BMUs) and improved stewardship of their sites has played a key role in reducing threats. More of the resource users, especially those in the fish value chain, appreciate the presence of the BMU structures and fisheries regulation, which is enforced on the ground by the BMU members. The members are compelling fellow fisher folks to abide to their by-laws and national fisheries regulations. In some of the landing sites they are forcing brokers and dealers not to buy undersize fish hence driving the demand down. This eventually translates to strong sense of ownership and diminishing threats hence ecosystem service gains. Josephine Nzilani, Programme Officer, East Africa.

In Central America, our marine project focused on building capacity among local stakeholders for improved management. An important impact of the project has been that artisanal fishers in each of the sites have proposed new management measures (or in some cases management measures that exist at a national level but with limited compliance) and regardless of enforcement capacity (generally low) or legally designated areas, many of these fishers are already complying with these regulations and helping to convince their fellow fishers of the benefits of doing so. Chelsea Combest-Friedman, Programme Manager (Marine), Americas & Caribbean.

In Cape Verde, newly trained community monitors successfully conducted daily and weekly patrols in Protected Areas. Community based participative shark data collection resulted in 20 reported shark sightings. Sophie Benbow, Projects Manager, Eurasia.

In Nicaragua, one of the rangers (Faustino Obando) working at Chacocente, who has been trained by MARENA and FFI for many years, has this year been promoted to become head of the arribada (mass nesting) beach at La Flor Wildlife Refuge. Faustino has developed a strong skill set during his time at Chacocente, and now has a range of technical skills, an understanding of data analysis and management experience. We believe his appointment will strengthen conservation management at La Flor and will also facilitate the coordination of coastal-marine conservation throughout Nicaragua’s coral corridor. Velkiss Gadea, Marine Turtle Programme Coordinator, Nicaragua.

In the Philippines, the values formation and coastal resource management training among leaders and members of the indigenous peoples groups has resulted in the establishment of community based Marine Protected Areas in their respective barangays (villages). Enforcement of these marine protected areas is now on-going with the fish wardens. Ton Bringas, Programme Officer, FFI Philippines.

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Our work in Vietnam on Ca Ba Langurs is, by its nature very collaborative. Nothing can be achieved without buy-in from a large number of stakeholders. While to some extent this makes the process incredibly time consuming and difficult to manage logistically, it results in a single direction for conservation implementation and has been successful in raising additional capacity to deal with conservation issues from other institutions as they have a vested interest in making the shared objectives a reality. The development of the technical working group under this project represents the first of its kind (at least in Vietnam) where a large stakeholder group has a voice and can contribute ideas and resources to the conservation of one of the most endangered species on the planet. This seemed impossible to achieve 18 months ago. Ben Rawson, Country Director, Vietnam.

Supporting development of conservation leaders and innovators

In 2014 MPhil scholar from 2012-13 Madyo Couto from Mozambique updated FFI with his progress since completing the course. He has worked on a range of strategic conservation initiatives in Mozambique. These include review and first revision of the national strategy to address human-wildlife conflicts; research to inform a strategic approach for tackling poaching and illegal wildlife trade for elephants and rhinos in Mozambique; and supporting FFI's Mozambique Country Representative with establishing a Foundation for the future management of Niassa National Reserve and the REDD+ Project. Madyo says: “In tackling all of these projects, I do feel that my experience with the MPhil was enriching. This is not only in regards to the way I approach the topic, in terms of trying to harness existing expertise and knowledge, but also in terms of understanding the wider scope of the issue.” Marianne Carter, Director, Conservation Capacity & Leadership.

Alumni of the Conservation Leadership Programme are widely recognised, in 2014 alumni were nominated for several awards, three of which have been successful – Marsh Awards for Marine and Terrestrial Conservation Leadership (2 x 2014), and Society for Conservation Biology Young Woman Conservation Biologist (nominated originally in 2013 but awarded in 2015). It’s also been rewarding to provide references or reviews for alumni to help their achievements get recognised and their projects funded. Stuart Paterson, Senior Programme Manager, Conservation Capacity & Leadership.

In Scotland, with FFI’s support, COAST Chairman Howard Wood was nominated and subsequently awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for his work to improve the management of the Scottish marine environment. The prize will see Howard and COAST receive financial support for their cause as well as international recognition and global visibility for their work. Abigail Entwistle, Director, Conservation Science & Design.

Tamar Pataridze, an MPhil scholar in 2011-12 reported in 2014 “After graduating with my Masters in Conservation Leadership I went back to Georgia and joined the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Protection of Georgia as the Head of Forest Policy Service. This is a newly created unit to lead the forest reform process in the country. I rely on the knowledge and experience I gained at Cambridge on an almost daily basis. Insights into the importance of and possible designs for stakeholder engagement in biodiversity decision making have been particularly beneficial in ensuring that the forest reform process is conducted in a transparent, coordinated and participatory way.” Marianne Carter, Director, Conservation Capacity & Leadership.

In Cambodia, around half of the recently completed 8th cohort students have obtained employment in

conservation, testament to the success of the programme. Nicholas Souter, Project Manager, Cambodia University Capacity Building Project.

The training sessions we ran in Ethiopia in 2014 on project planning and proposal writing were a great success, with 97% of participants rating it as ‘excellent’. Participants were guided through the entire project development and proposal writing process and acquired in- depth information on a range of fundraising-related topics. 50 individuals who attended the CLP Project Planning and Proposal Writing Course from 2009 - 2013 reported that they cumulatively raised more than $2.8 million dollars using the skills and knowledge gained from the CLP training course to write successful proposals. Stuart Paterson, Senior Programme Manager, Conservation Capacity & Leadership.

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Harnessing technology for conservation Anecdotally, all of the technologists I’ve engaged in Conservation Labs over the past year have been very excited

about the project, since it will offer them a way of applying their expertise in helping to tackle biodiversity conservation issues that affect us all but for which there is currently no obvious pathway for them to make a meaningful contribution. Gavin Shelton, Head of Conservation Labs.

ARM, the world’s leading microprocessor company and the founding technology partner of Conservation Labs have supported all Conservation Labs activities in 2014 and have confirmed that in 2015, they will also be working alongside FFI, Yaaxche Conservation Trust in Belize and the University of Southampton to develop next generation remote acoustic monitoring technologies which can be used to remotely detect and report illegal logging activities. The collaborating partners plan to develop multiple conservation applications for these tools at other sites. Gavin Shelton, Gavin Shelton, Head of Conservation Labs.

Aim 4: To invest in FFI effectiveness As an organisation fundamentally grounded in partnerships, FFI prioritises actions that improve the conservation effectiveness of partners across our global portfolio. In developing our 2014-2018 business plan we realised that this was sometimes to the detriment of investment in our own development. Within the limits of albeit constrained budgets, we are therefore proactively increasing focus on staff skills, processes, finance and learning to support continued growth. We detail below the first indications from project reports of this bearing fruit in 2014. Key to continued benefit is improved inclusivity across FFI’s hubs in management decision-making and the accuracy/timeliness of management information that supports this, together with a collaborative approach to our Capital Campaign; the evolution of governance processes that recognise our global reach will consolidate these gains.

a) Activities undertaken in 2014 FFI recognises the need for continued investment in our own systems, staff and processes to ensure continued effective and impactful conservation. • In 2014, 24 FFI projects (field based and Cambridge based) worked to improve internal FFI capacity or systems or

promote internal learning. This benefitted at least149 FFI staff.

• FFI staff learning needs were assessed during 2014 and appropriate and applicable training was designed to meet these needs including through both internal and external opportunities. In total 49 training events (27 external, 22 internal) took place for 78 staff across all FFI teams in 2014.

• In 2014 we worked to strengthen our development of new projects through the implementation of a process that captures concept development from across the FFI teams and allows for Senior Management Team review and approval. This process strengthens our project cycle and provides information from key managers involved in assessing of opportunity and risk. This demonstrably improved organisational effectiveness as FFI’s Senior Management Team saw a higher number of concepts than in previous years and were able to give feedback and sign off through the new system, which was one of the main aims of the trial. There is still scope for further improvement and additional features will be added to the system in the coming year.

• The recruitment of an Impact Assessment Manager in 2014 provided the opportunity to develop institutional thinking on monitoring and evaluation and how this is integrated into projects. Specifically approaches to using Theory of Change in a manner applicable to the context of FFI’s work were developed and four workshops were delivered to four projects to implement this monitoring system.

• A working group on FFI as a learning organisation was brought together where current and potential learning opportunities were identified and reviewed.

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c) Examples of activities and successes from 2014 The quotes below are drawn directly from the 2014 Annual Reports and represent an illustration of some of the developments and successes achieved by our projects over the last year. Support from our marine programme to the FFI communications team provided the opportunity for skills development

“I am so grateful to Arcadia for funding my attendance at International Marine Science Communications Conference – the conference has given me an invaluable insight into communicating about marine conservation, highlighting those areas where we are doing well, and areas where we could be more effective. On land, the wonders of the natural world and the damage we are inflicting upon it is apparent to most; whereas – for all but the privileged few – life under the ocean waves remains an unseen mystery. As a result, engaging the public in marine conservation can be very difficult because, as one speaker at the conference put it, ‘we have to make the invisible, visible.’ The conference helped me to understand where the parallels and differences are between marine and terrestrial conservation communications, and I am looking forward to putting this knowledge into practice.” Sarah Rakowski, Communications Officer (Media & Publications)

Figure 15. Impact chain representing a series of outcomes expected from FFI’s work improve organisational effectiveness in 23 relevant projects. The total number of projects at each outcome level is detailed in the lower boxes. Projects are only counted once and assigned the highest level of outcome or impact reported by the end of 2014.

• Work in 2014 has continued to develop MyFFI, FFI’s online knowledge management and communications platform. Improvements have been seen in coverage and uptake and over 2014 it has been noted that MyFFI is gradually adjusted from being a simple document repository to a platform reflecting processes within FFI and where tacit and explicit knowledge can be shared.

• With the arrival of the new Chief Operating Officer at the end of 2014, we started a review of our operational processes, systems and procedures to ensure they are fit for purpose and ready to support FFI in the next stages of its Business Plan period. In future years we will need to invest in the development of our infrastructure and financial capacity to ensure our systems and processes are better integrated, efficient and resilient, designed to enable effective global management and fit to support the scale of our projects, complexity of funding, and global reach.

• We continued to implement our carefully planned strategy to steadily grow the number of supporters on FFI’s database who will support the organisation through major gifts (including trusts and corporations), membership and legacies, focussing on key audiences around our hubs in the UK, US, Singapore and Australia.

b) Outcomes and impacts – a snapshot in 2014 This year we have included an outline generalised impact chain (Figure 15) for Investing in FFI effectiveness based on the information provided by 23 projects on improving internal FFI capacity or systems or promoting internal learning. Although limited data included within the Annual Reports doesn’t allow us to analyse this as effectively as we would like we shall be developing our reporting structure to capture and analyse this type of data more effectively in the future.

Insufficient information

Negative impacts / no response from work to improve FFI effectiveness

Too soon to see results

Skills applied and/or organisational systems improved

Reduced threats and/or improved biodiversity outcomes

Higher or more sustainable impact on biodiversity

Increased organisational effectiveness

Number of projects 8 3 11 1 0 0

0

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In Myanmar training for FFI staff has included GIS training, dive training and Reef Check coral survey methods training. At least 70% of those trained then directly used their new skills. Mark Grindley, Tanintharyi Forest Programme Manager, Myanmar & Rob Howard, Marine Programme Advisor, Myanmar.

FFI’s David Gill attended a seed collection techniques training course in Kenya and at the MSBP base at Wakehurst Place. This has allowed him to liaise with project managers from each country to relay this information as part of the feasibility study process. The whole process helps to build capacity of the project manager of each country, encouraging and supporting them to learn who the best partners are, reconsider priority sites and species and learn the necessary best practice techniques for seed collection, much of which heavily overlaps with general best practice for tree conservation (e.g. how to assess a population, how to collect seed from a genetic representation of the population etc.). David Gill, Project Manager, Global Trees Campaign.

Through our internal professional development programme for which analysis began in late 2014 we are seeing staff

use their new skills. We have adopted the approach of self-assessment, using indicators selected by the trainee immediately after the event and progress measured against them via a short questionnaire completed 6 months after the event. To date eight forms have been completed, all eight respondents reported a little or large increase in their skills in the subject as a result of the training, with examples given in each case of where the skills had been applied in the course of their work. Chloe Hodgkinson, Senior Programme Manager, Conservation Capacity & Leadership.

In Cambodia FFI Project Officer Ms Leng Phalla received a short (two day) training: “A practical introduction to social survey design for conservation science” at Cambridge University, after her attendance at the Student Conference on Conservation Science. This was followed by two weeks of work under the guidance of Asia-Pacific staff in the FFI Cambridge office. She has now been promoted to the position of Project Coordinator – Research and Awareness, and she coordinated the socio-economic baseline survey for the Marine Fisheries Management Area. Berry Mulligan, Project Manager Coastal and Marine Conservation Project, Cambodia.

Credit: Jeremy Holden/FFI

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Learning from our experience

In addition to understanding our impact, as an organisation we strive to learn from our experiences so that we can continue to evolve. We look to understand what makes us successful and what can undermine success as well as understanding what lessons we take from this. What underpins project level success? • 130 projects provided answers to the question ‘why was the project successful?’, some citing several factors. • Key factors influencing project success included (listed in order of most reported):

o Direct community engagement o Collaborative approach o Strong partnerships o General stakeholder involvement o Internal FFI collaboration o Strong project design o Government engagement o Effective and well-skilled FFI staff teams

“The project is by its nature very collaborative. Nothing can be achieved without buy-in from a large number of stakeholders. While to some extent this makes the process incredibly time consuming and difficult to manage logistically, it results in a single direction for conservation implementation and has been successful in raising additional capacity to deal with conservation issues from other institutions as they have a vested interest in making the shared objectives a reality.” “The main reason why the project has been successful is that it is built to engage with local communities from the very beginning. Local communities are the ones identifying the issues and how best to solve them. It is a bottom up approach” What undermines project level success and how can we learn from it? • 124 projects provided answers questions about what did not go well and why • In 43 projects these problems related to delays in delivery of components of projects and in four cases the project was put

on hold completely • There was a significant diversity in the types of problems encountered – both external issues (generally beyond our control)

and intrinsic factors • Key recurring problems across projects were (listed in order of most reported):

o Partnership issues, such as capacity constraints o Delays caused by government processes and bureaucracy o Pressures on staff time and / or changing priorities affecting time commitments o Operational issues o Changes in external situation, such as conflict, insecurity and disease o Lacks of funds and / or lack of success with fundraising o Design and planning issues

“Relationships between individuals within our partner have been strained and FFI has had to play a strong counselling and resolution role, which reflects the realities of conservation being all about people and inter-personal relationships, particularly when people feel passionately about an issue.” “FFI worked in the sometimes uncertain local political situation where the heads of government agencies can suddenly be changed at any time. For example, 11 agency heads were suddenly replaced along with many of their key staff. This interrupts continuity of project implementation” Working in partnership and the key role this plays in our work is confirmed by the fact that it comes highest for factors underpinning success, which along with the importance of stakeholder and community engagement reflects back strongly FFI’s core stated ethos and approach to conservation. However it is interesting to note the downside to this approach – as issues related to partnership working were also identified as the most reported factor undermining success. In some cases the problems encountered were identified as being either beyond our control and/or unpredictable, but 62 projects also identified how they had learnt from their experiences to date and would be adapting their project level systems or operations in response. We will use this data to both support projects and address wider operational issues.

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This report aims to summarise the breadth of conservation action we – as an organisation - have undertaken in 2014. This conservation report relies entirely on the individual Annual Reports from projects, and provides a snapshot in time as to what individual projects are achieving, as well as an assessment of our collective organisational progress in relation to our overarching mission. However, we fully recognise that no report can capture the immense efforts, and complexities, of our projects, nor the dynamic nature of our work which is constantly adapting and evolving to meet changing external contexts. This report necessarily overlooks many stories of achievement and commitment on-the-ground in projects, and cannot showcase each of our hard-working and effective project teams, whose outputs underlie the information presented here. However, every report we receive provides an insight into the realities – and often difficulties – of delivering conservation, be it on-the-ground, through partner relationships or through working with policy makers and businesses. The reports also provide an important source of information about the constraints and obstacles we collectively face in delivering our projects, as well as insights into some of the ways of working that have proved most successful and the new and innovative solutions that various of our teams are testing and this feedback is used internally to help us improve our practices and learn as an organisation. Reading all these reports is a privilege and reminds us of the commitment of FFI’s staff (who are often working in very difficult conditions), the complexity of the challenges they are addressing, the breadth of expertise and approaches we bring as an organisation, and the strength of our networks and partnerships, which underpin our conservation delivery and successes. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their contributions this year, and their insight and honesty in documenting the varied and complex work we do. If you would like more details from any of the Annual Reports provided, or have comments about the Conservation Report and annual reporting process please contact Victoria Dauncey (Victoria.Dauncey@fauna-flora.org) or Abigail Entwistle (Abigail.Entwistle@fauna-flora.org). Thanks also to Jessica Sweeney for her assistance in Annual Report analysis and to Rebecca Costello for producing this report.

Conclusions and looking forward

Credit: Jeremy Holden/FFI

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Annex 1. FFI’s focal species 2014 Table 1. List of 55 focal species with IUCN Red List status- Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN), Vulnerable (VU), Near Threatened (NT), Least Concern (LC), Data Deficient (DD) and Not Evaluated (NE)

Common name Latin name Global status Mammals Sumatran tiger Panthera tigris sumatrae CR Snow leopard Panthera uncia EN Iberian lynx Lynx pardinus CR European grey wolf Canis lupus LC (a priority species within Europe) European brown bear Ursus arctos LC (a priority species within Europe) Saiga Antelope Saiga tatarica CR Mountain gorilla/Eastern lowland gorilla

Gorilla beringei CR/EN

Cross River gorilla Gorilla gorilla CR

Chimpanzee Pan troglodytes EN Bornean orangutan Pongo pymaeus EN Cao-vit gibbon Nomascus nasutus natusus CR Eastern hoolock gibbon Hoolock leuconedys VU Western hoolock gibbon Hoolock hoolock EN Kloss’s gibbon Hylobates klossii EN Black crested gibbon Nomascus concolor CR Hainan gibbon Nomascus hainanus CR Francois’ langur Trachypithecus francoisi EN Cat Ba langur Trachypithecus poliocephalus CR Tonkin snub-nosed monkey Rhinopithecus avunculus CR Myanmar snub-nosed monkey Rhinopithecus stryker CR African savannah elephant Loxodonta africana VU African forest elephant Loxodonta cyclotis NE Black rhinoceros Diceros bicornis CR White rhinoceros Ceratotherium simum NT Asian elephant Elephas maximus EN Reptiles Antiguan racer Alsophis antiguae CR St Lucian racer Liophis ornatus EN (likely to be upgraded to CR) Anguilla racer Alsophis rijgersmaei EN Saint Lucia fer-de-lance Bothrops caribbaeus NE Hawksbill turtle Eretmochelys imbricate CR Olive Ridley turtle Lepidochelys olivacea VU Leatherback turtle Dermochelys coriacea VU Loggerhead turtle Caretta caretta EN Siamese crocodile Crocodylus siamensis CR Fish Nurse shark Ginglymostoma cirratum DD

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Common name Latin name Global status Trees Lansan tree Protium attenuatum DD Grandidier’s baobab Adansonia grandidieri EN Diego’s baobab Adansonia suarezensis EN Perrier’s baobab Adansonia perrieri EN African Zebrawood Microberlinia bisulcata CR - Magnolia coriacea CR - Magnolia grandis CR - Magnolia megaphylla CR - Magnolia sinica CR - Abies ziyuanensis EN - Abies yuanbaoshanensis CR - Pinus squamata CR

- Rhododendron protistum var. Giganteum NE

- Xanthocyparis vietnamensis CR - Malus niedzwetzkyana EN Bukharan pear Pyrus korshinskyi CR - Pyrus tadshikistanica CR Honduran rosewood Dalbergia stevensonii NE Pelahlar Dipterocarpus littoralis EN Invertebrates Chinese horseshoe crab Tachypleus tridentatus DD

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