346 Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities
Project relies on volunteers to facilitate large-scale on-ground work and innovative
data analysis, and broad community engagement has fostered success in the
program. In the Kimberley, WWF has partnered with Indigenous groups in a
project with multi-faceted outcomes for threatened species conservation, long-term
land management and cultural priorities. These two case studies demonstrate the
importance of good planning and project management for ensuring the success of
projects with high levels of community engagement, and also touch on some
critical components of engaging effectively with Indigenous communities.
Introduction
WWF actively works on-ground to conserve threatened species. Its programs
target charismatic and iconic Australian animals, with conservation efforts often
generating benefits to other species in the area and ecosystems overall (WWF-
Australia 2016). Monitoring is an important part of the organisation’s threatened
species work, used to gauge success of conservation efforts, observe how
populations are trending, or indicate when management action is necessary. Its
field-based programs include engagement, capacity-building and education
components, aiming to enhance long-term conservation outcomes.
Community engagement and participation has been integral to the success of
most of WWF’s environmental work. Its programs aim to link the public with their
environment while raising awareness and sparking interest in target species.
Grassroots support and community understanding of conservation matters is a
pathway to facilitate change (Evans et al. 2005). Projects involving species of
importance to communities receive more local support and are more likely to
succeed. Community participation enhances a project’s value and effectiveness,
often increasing outputs by expanding the scale of fieldwork, allowing for greater
data collection and analysis, and exploration of landscape-scale questions.
Partnerships with Indigenous communities are an important component of
WWF’s community engagement and involve working on target species of
importance for both conservation and cultural reasons. WWF takes a rights-based
approach to conservation work: it recognises the rights of Indigenous people to
make decisions about management and protection of their customary lands
(regardless of tenure), and believe that projects should present equitable benefits to
all parties (Larsen and Springer 2008). Through its programs, WWF aims to
empower Indigenous people with alternative tools, skills and other support that
they may seek from the partnership to continue to manage culturally significant
species. Projects provide real employment and training opportunities for some of
the country’s most remote and economically marginalised communities (WWF-
Australia 2017), therefore having multiple conservation, cultural and socio-
economic objectives.