Protecting Biodiversity | Rare

The biological diversity of life on earth is the foundation of human existence and well-being. Biodiversity and viable ecosystems protect us from natural disasters, regulate the climate, and provide food, fertile soil, and medicine.

But biodiversity is declining and many of the world’s greatest biodiversity hotspots are located in countries burdened by poverty, food insecurity, and intensifying climate change.

These underlying drivers of biodiversity loss are a result of unsustainable human activity and behavior. To protect biodiversity – and the prosperity of communities around the world – we must adopt and spur demand for more responsible and sustainable practices that safeguard soil, water, forests, and wildlife.

The Approach

Local communities, or those who directly rely on nature, are at the heart of biodiversity protection and sustainable resource use. Rare empowers and partners with smallholder farming households and small-scale fishing communities and their local governments to shift from being resource users to environmental stewards.

How We’re Protecting Biodiversity

Inspiring people and communities to adopt sustainable behaviors.

Rare engages smallholder farmers and small-scale fishers in mobilizing their communities to improve land and fisheries management and reduce pressure on agriculture and fisheries.

• Fish Forever inspires fishers to shift towards more sustainable fishing practices that protect biodiversity and ecosystems, like coral reefs and mangrove forests
• Lands for Life equips farmers with techniques, such as composting and cover cropping, to reduce their impact.
• Center for Behavior & the Environment trains environmental practitioners in Behavior-Centered Design to maximize the impact of their work around the world.

Building resource management capacity.

• Fish Forever works with fishing communities and their local governments to create networks of fully-protected and community-led no-take marine reserves that replenish and sustain fish populations and protect critical habitat
• Lands for Life trains and build capacity in public and private agricultural extension service agents to improve how they interact with farmers and ensures new practices have staying power.

Spotlighting behavioral solutions for biodiversity.

• Rare facilitates Solution Search: Farming for Biodiversity, a contest that surfaced 338 solutions that use behavioral approaches to align biodiversity preservation with agricultural production. The contest identified the drivers making positive change in this sector, the common success factors across the solutions, and the important role that change agents play in that success.
• Our Center for Behavior & the Environment runs Campaigning for Conservation trainings in communities around the world to empower local practitioners with tools and skills to promote local biodiversity protection.
  

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