Partners Principles Online Toolkit

Presence & Aptness

Welcome to the first principle of the PARTNERS principles: PRESENCE.

Please read the chapters on “PRESENCE” and “APTNESS” in the book “The PARTNERS Principles for Community-Based Conservation.” They introduce the key themes we discuss throughout the videos and examples.

Watch this video to get started!

A short story from Misgar valley, Pakistan.
Hussain Ali from the Snow Leopard Foundation Pakistan shares a story of community based conservation in Pakistan. Watch this video to learn more.

Let’s bring it all together.
We used this case study to highlight the key points that led to a positive response from the community.

Now we will dive into the principle of PRESENCE.
This video shares a few points we think are important about the principle.

Welcome to the second principle of the PARTNERS principles: APTNESS.

A short story from Losar, India.
Ajay from the Nature Conservation Foundation shares a story of community based conservation in Spiti Valley, India. Watch this video to learn more.

Let’s bring it all together.
We used these case studies to highlight a common challenge we face.

Now we will dive into the principle of APTNESS.
This video shares a few points we think are important about the principle.

Join the discussion.
The PARTNERS Principles Network discuss the principles of PRESENCE & APTNESS.

Recap of the principles: PRESENCE & APTNESS.

Activities

Time for an activity. You can do this activity either as a group or as an individual.

Activity 1: Discussion points 

How do we build relationships with local communities? This links to the principle of PARTNERS – Presence. Discuss with your colleagues.

What are the other benefits of maintaining presence?

Activity 2: The Trust Triangle

The presence of the practitioner in the community can help set a foundation of trust between the local community and the conservation agency. However, this is a continuous process which improves with time – there are no shortcuts to building trust between the local community and conservationists. Trust between the conservationist and the community members is influenced by three critical components: intent, capacity and accountability. The lack of any of these will affect trust between them.

Individual Or Group Activity: 

  • This activity is suitable for 1-5 individuals
  • Take a sheet of paper and list the benefits of maintaining presence. For each benefit, think through how feasible maintaining presence would be for you or your organisation right now – and then think through what would need to change to ensure presence. This could be an activity for an individual, or for a team or organisation working on increasing their presence in a particular setting.
  • The Trust Triangle
    • As an individual or organisation, think about what your intent is in terms of conservation objective – try to be as precise as possible (so moving away from ‘we want to protect leopards’ to, for example, ‘we want to establish initial links with 3 new communities this year’)
    • Next work through what your capability is (what resources you have).
    • Now list your accountability (whether you can follow up with your intent).
      • For example, do you have the capacity to follow up with communities on time? If not this might make it hard to build trust within the community where we work?
      • For example if your capability is too low, adjust your intent to 1 community. All this builds up to the trust that you will be building with the local community in the long-term.
    • Discuss how Intent, capacity and accountability are all necessary in the process of trust building.

Dive into the next Principles: RESPECT & TRANSPARENCY