At CCB, meaningful conservation starts with listening – and 2025 kicked off with a series of important conversations across four partner villages: Bere, East Hanahai, West Hanahai, Kacgae. With our intent on hosting them biannually, these community planning meetings brought together elders, community trust members, youth representatives, farmers, and village leaders to reflect on recent work, raise concerns, and shape future priorities.
These gatherings aren’t just routine check-ins – they’re the foundation for trust, transparency, and long-term collaboration. Each meeting included presentations from our multi-departmental team about project progress across education, livelihoods, human-wildlife conflict mitigation, and conservation research. But more importantly, the floor was opened to community members to share feedback on challenges and triumphs, and identify opportunities for what can be done next.
By keeping the communication channels open with our partner communities, we are, for instance, able to better comprehend the potential impacts of shocks such as the unexpected withdrawal of funding mid-project for the indigenous knowledge and cultural preservation work we are facilitating. Recognising the momentum built within the communities and their keen interest in the subject matter, we were able to dedicate some flexible core funding to continue key activities.
Recurring themes this year included requests for expanded youth opportunities, greater follow-up on bush camp activities, support for local farmers, and clarity on tourism benefits. Building on this feedback – and to reflect on how best to move forward – we will conduct an internal review to align and adapt our programming; the updated strategies are to be shared with stakeholders later this year.
We are an organisation that believes in development with, not for, communities. Our organisational strategic planning is but one part of how we use reflection as a guide for course correction. Understanding that lived experience is as valuable a tool as data analysis and forecasting, it is fundamental that we take any suppositions and propositions we devise back to our partners to share and map pathways to success together.
These gatherings aren’t just routine check-ins – they’re the foundation for trust, transparency, and long-term collaboration. Each meeting included presentations from our multi-departmental team about project progress across education, livelihoods, human-wildlife conflict mitigation, and conservation research. But more importantly, the floor was opened to community members to share feedback on challenges and triumphs, and identify opportunities for what can be done next.
By keeping the communication channels open with our partner communities, we are, for instance, able to better comprehend the potential impacts of shocks such as the unexpected withdrawal of funding mid-project for the indigenous knowledge and cultural preservation work we are facilitating. Recognising the momentum built within the communities and their keen interest in the subject matter, we were able to dedicate some flexible core funding to continue key activities.
Recurring themes this year included requests for expanded youth opportunities, greater follow-up on bush camp activities, support for local farmers, and clarity on tourism benefits. Building on this feedback – and to reflect on how best to move forward – we will conduct an internal review to align and adapt our programming; the updated strategies are to be shared with stakeholders later this year.
We are an organisation that believes in development with, not for, communities. Our organisational strategic planning is but one part of how we use reflection as a guide for course correction. Understanding that lived experience is as valuable a tool as data analysis and forecasting, it is fundamental that we take any suppositions and propositions we devise back to our partners to share and map pathways to success together.
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