Bridging the Gap: Tools for Conservation and Development

This team worked with their client, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), on its current Translinks initiative funded by USAID. USAID is collaborating to develop a framework related to its mission in rural Africa, "Nature, Wealth, and Power," with the goal of generating "best practice" development projects that would appropriately consider the integration of natural resources, economic concerns, and good governance practices. Bringing together five partner organizations, Translinks aims to ensure socio-economic development while ensuring sustainable environmental quality. The team proposed bridging the gap between conservation and development by designing tools with the member partners that could be used by practitioners in the field. The tools they looked at focused on zoning, natural resource marketing, and payments for ecosystem services. Although three separate tools were created, it was found that there were underlying themes that were pertinent to the success of each tool and that practitioners could benefit from using these tools together.