Poverty, drought, unemployment and wildlife conflict often push communities neighboring conservation areas to engage in destructive activities such as poaching, charcoal burning and other environmentally unfriendly activities.

To alleviate these human-made biodiversity threats; Amara Conservation works with the local community members to formulate strategies designed to provide alternative livelihoods for them that are biodiversity friendly.

We work with the local community members to explore opportunities, identify and appraise potential sustainable alternative projects, train community members on the alternative livelihood projects and work to achieve their implementation. This working partnership ensures the community ownership and acceptance of the projects, as well as encouraging utilization of local knowledge and home-grown solutions. These interventions, in addition to improving the community livelihoods also help ease biodiversity destruction.

The alternative livelihood projects include projects that promote cheap sources of protein to reduce bush meat demand, income generating enterprises, projects to improve food security and enterprises that tap benefits from the wildlife/ tourism industry. We also work with communities to help them adopt modern technology and linkages to networks.