BRINCC forms meaningul partnerships with local organisations to effect real conservation outcomes that benefit nature and communities

A partnership model for conservation

BRINCC forms partnerships with local organisations (NGOs, Universities, Community Groups) to help fund and implement conservation projects that result in direct conservation outcomes. Each project is a collaboration between local organisations with proven impact and experience in community based conservation. BRINCC provides funding, project management and (where relevant) skills and experience but allows our partners – experts in their fields – do their job. 

Community-based conservation

Based upon years of participatory research with local communities, BRINCC identifies areas of forest that are desirable and feasible to pass into community management. BRINCC's participatory mapping and social research has identified areas of forest essential for sources of clean water, food, medicinal plants, building materials and other forest resources. BRINCC's partners then help the community in their applications for community managed forests, help them establish legally recognised management committees and management plans and provide training, financing and support for the protection and management of the forest. BRINCC's partners also help the communities generate a sustainable source of revenue from the forest to fund the ongoing protection of these forests from outside threats. 

A threatened ecosystem

The Barito River watershed in Central Kalimantan is one of the frontiers of rainforest conservation. This remote rainforest ecosystem is one of the largest remaining areas of contiguous old-growth forest left in Borneo and is a reservoir of biodiversity and ecosystem services upon which much of Borneo depends. With much of the lowlands already destroyed, more pressure is being put on these highland regions, previously too remote to be financially viable. As such, logging and mining activity in the region is reaching an unprecedented level. Most of the area is already divided into concessions for companies to conduct coal and gold mining exploration, and industrial scale logging is increasingly active. Every day, roads are being planned, new logging and mining concessions opened. Without conservation efforts, little of this rainforest will remain in decades to come. 

Capacity building for the next generation

Our capacity building program aims to train the future conservation leaders in Indonesia. We take promising young undergraduate and postgraduate Indonesian students, and fund them to join research projects. We take great pride in the training we provide students, not only training them in field research but supporting them to manage their own research projects, budgets and logistics. Recent graduates of our capacity building program have gone on to work for international conservation NGOs, multinational organisations and top Indonesian Universities. 

Landscape scale-conservation

BRINCC not only supports communities in their application for locally managed forests but also supports wider landscape scale conservation in the region. BRINCC has produced the first ever comprehensive biodiversity surveys of the Upper Barito watershed and are expanding to cover a wider area. This research provides new data on species distribution, densities and population numbers that are essential for making informed conservation decisions. Combined with our on-going participatory mapping activities, this yeilds detailed maps with hotspots of biological and social importance that can be used in land use planning and become priorities for conservation.