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Quarterly Update Summer 2019 Crocodile wardens Sim Kmao (left) and Yem Introduction Khoeun on the way to check a nest near the rehabilitation site in .

For over a decade, Cool Earth has championed as the often overlooked key player in keeping our climate in balance.

This year, you’ve helped us turn up the volume.

With the backing of our business partners, Cool Earth has been able to scale up even further with three new partnerships in Cambodia, Cameroon and .

By building a network of partnerships around the globe, Cool Earth is helping to share the crucial knowledge and best practices between indigenous and rainforest communities that will make a real difference.

Every action that Cool Earth’s community partners take is a step towards reducing pressure on the forest. And by enabling communities to have greater financial resilience, you are giving them the confidence and capacity to shout even louder when their trees fall.

Thank you,

Matthew Owen, Director

2 3 Location Challenges Activities Growing and Learning | New Partnerships Southwest Province Poverty Fruit tree farming of Cameroon Logging Education Bushmeat hunting

Cool Earth has an ambitious target Mount Muanenguba | Cameroon to develop at least 30 new rainforest partnerships around the tropics by 2030. Fruit tree Alternative Reduced hunting, nurseries sustainable improvement in livelihood forest health In the past year we’ve partnered with three new communities in Cambodia, Cameroon, and Mozambique. In Cameroon, conflict is increasingly reducing people’s chances to escape poverty. When this happens, conservation is put on the back burner. Each partnership brings different challenges, cultural intricacies and complex drivers of . And that means that no two approaches to rainforest With Cool Earth’s support, a steadfast local NGO, the Centre for Community protection will be the same. Regeneration and Development (CCREAD), is offering an alternative to logging and hunting to sell bushmeat to make a living. Cool Earth believes that tackling these challenges shouldn’t be top-down, from charity to community. Instead, we support local and indigenous knowledge to And the word is beginning to spread. Throughout the region, others are learning develop the best ways to protect rainforest and then sharing this understanding about sustainable income generating ideas that help reduce pressures on between rainforest communities around the globe. the rainforest.

Businesses have played a central role in helping to develop these new partnerships, with smart investment at the heart of the learning, feasibility and " I’m doing what I like to do, and want to do what I implementation process. This includes Brother International Europe’s backing of our can. I might have to move on foot for hours, but I need partnership in 2015 as well as Rentokil Initial’s early support to be there to encourage others." of both Cameroon and Mozambique. Businesses are enabling us to further our knowledge and improve our approach to tackling some of the complex challenges - Hilary Ngide, Executive Director, CCREAD that communities face.

4 Location Challenges Activities The village of Por Beung sits amongst Koh Kong Province, Food insecurity Chicken farming the Cardomom Mountains in the Koh Cambodia Poverty Rice production Kong province of Cambodia. Wildlife conflict

Cardamom Mountains | Cambodia

Increased Fewer hunger Reduced rice/poultry months deforestation yields

Cool Earth’s new partnership in Cambodia with Fauna and Flora International (FFI), envisions a future where local communities in the Cardamom Mountains are able to sustainably manage their land and protect their environment.

From developing techniques that improve rice production to reintroducing the critically endangered Siamese crocodile within the river’s ecosystem that may improve fish numbers, reducing the hunger months will limit logging and the need to hunt for bushmeat.

"I am happy to live here, it is my birth land. I love to live here, I love the forest and I don’t want to lose it. I am committed to protecting it.”

- Om Jan, Commune Councillor, Por Beung

7 Location Challenges Activities Adelina Jackson, the Queen of Zambezia Province, Potato farming Beekeeping Namuli, sits outside her house Mozambique Wildfire Education at the foot of the mountain. Drought

Mount Namuli | Mozambique

Beekeeping Alternative Reduction in sustainable forest clearance livelihood

With increasing wildfires and drought, Cool Earth’s partnership in Mozambique is a challenge. But it’s one that we’re rising to. Learning from a range of threats is key to building the knowledge and know-how needed for effective rainforest protection.

Farming is the main source of income for several families in the area. Potatoes grow well and fetch a high price at the market, but that income comes at a great cost for rainforest. With limited livelihood alternatives, local people are forced into using unsustainable agricultural techniques just to put food on the table.

That’s why Cool Earth has partnered with local expert organisation, Legado, to develop a beekeeping programme that aims to improve livelihoods and help preserve remaining rainforest.

" The experiences that Cool Earth has had in other countries can be used here."

- Filimonio Felizardo, Legado, Mozambique

9 Papua New Guinea

Opening up Opportunities

If rainforest communities are to withstand become a permanent school, with two local With their exams newly passed, fourteen climate threats and protect their trees, they need people being trained as future teachers, helping students are already looking to take part in to be empowered to do so. Around the tropics, to keep skills in the village. further training. From sewing and cooking, this means different things. To the community of carpentry to teaching, the community is bustling Sololo, it means education. And the best bit, if successful, is that the with ideas and plans for the future. building could become a designated national With 95% of adults still illiterate, accessing school funded by the government, keeping Education can change lives. These adults education could be the pathway to breaking education top of the curriculum long after Cool will be able to seek a broader range of the cycle of poverty. Earth has gone. employment, manage their own businesses and be further involved in sustainable community It’s no secret that rainforest communities are Working with local organisation Community decisions that protect their rainforest. often overlooked at national level and access Service Consultancy (CSC), in-country Project to a good education is simply too costly or too Manager Gellie Akui and Project Coordinator far away. As such, illiteracy is not simply the Ricky Imanakuan have developed a literacy inability to read and write, it’s the inability to programme that covers reading, writing, basic fulfil a person’s potential. numeracy and speaking Tok Pisin and English with confidence. In spring, a temporary school was constructed Ricky’s Report in Sololo and is now home to the community’s " We want to give people the first adult literacy programme. This cohort of skills so that they can generate students have already shown that access to " It’s a very serious concern income and not go into education has huge potential. It’s opening the now and many people have destroying the forest for palm door to opportunities previously out of reach to come to realise the importance oil and logging to get money." rainforest communities like Sololo. of conserving their rainforest and what Cool Earth is doing." Next up, Cool Earth is working with the - Gellie Akui, Cool Earth Project Manager, community on an application for the centre to Papua New Guinea Recently, Ricky Imanakuan, Cool Earth Project Coordinator, painted a worrying picture of the increasingly severe and sporadic weather affecting the community of Gadaisu.

Read the report

10 11 "I am so glad to be in the adult literacy class because I missed formal education when I was a child. Life will be much easier when I can read and write. It will help me fulfil my dream to become a carpenter."

Tailor Lamovila, Sololo

12 Peru Inga Report

"Inga is the way to mitigate Seeing the wood excessive deforestation for the trees here. Our children and the next generations have For at least 5,000 years, the Asháninka have collection devices, the team and community split the right to a clean and called the Amazon rainforest home. Tradition, into three groups over two days to collect data. pristine environment." ceremony and storytelling are at the heart of - Fernando Orrego Ipukui, Huaracayo their culture, and they proudly hold on to their Using traditional GPS field devices, standard customs in a changing world. GPS-enabled Android smartphones and a Read here how inga, the nitrogen-fixing, bespoke form to collect information from each Swiss-Army knife of trees, is taking root in But that doesn’t make them averse to progress. point, the team verified locations of primary the Awajún and helping develop incomes. forest, deforestation, degradation, and During a recent field trip to the Cutivireni recorded valuable images. partnership, the Cool Earth team worked with six local community members to trial But it’s not just about data. These activities methodologies for collecting geospatial data. continue to be invaluable in engaging They were eager to support Cool Earth’s members of the community with every aspect Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) of monitoring their forest. It’s during exercises team in finding the best ways to monitor like this that the most interesting information the forest. comes out in conversation; territory boundaries, IPBES Indigenous Peoples invasions, village names, diseases, what the The data collected through on-the-ground communities hunt and what medicinal plants Nature is declining globally at rates observation will be used to validate data from continue to be used. unprecedented in human history — and the satellite analysis. It’s called ‘ground truthing’ rate of species extinction is accelerating. and is a core focus for the MEL team. This is how Cool Earth is truly able to understand the threats to people’s forest and the Take a look at how a recent report Canopy cover is a key indicator of the success possible solutions to deforestation. dubbed the ‘IPCC of ’ reiterates of Cool Earth’s partnerships. It’s why Cool that supporting indigenous and local Earth has been investing in the latest satellite Combine latest technology with local knowledge is key to averting climate and monitoring technology to keep tabs on the knowledge and the picture becomes ecological breakdown. health, and level of forest cover, both in and clear; a comprehensive story of life on the around the partnerships. rainforest floor. Read the report

With Cool Earth’s Regional Coordinator, Aurora Lume, running through the different data

14 " Working with community members to map land and natural resources is a critical activity to understand how rates of deforestation are changing and to empower communities in their decision-making."

Natalie Gawor MEL Manager

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