What can the community do?
Communities can support efforts to preserve biodiversity by cooperating with NGO’s and farmers seeking to rewild the local landscape. Additionally, communities can start projects that support biodiversity.
There are many opportunities for communities to start projects that not only promote a greater degree of biodiversity but can also improve the social fabric of the community. The community is the ideal place for individual people to have a real and lasting impact on their environment and help integrating nature into every-day live. The following are a few ideas and examples of how this can be achieved:
Cooperate with NGO’s! Communities can work together with organisations trying to rewild the local area, like in the case of the Côa Valley, where ATNatureza is managing land, bought from local inhabitants, as a wildlife reserve [2].
Found a community garden! Such a garden can be created from an unused area. This does not only provide food but can also help educate adults and children alike and create space for people to interact with nature, cooperate with others and express themselves artistically.
Small markets can be set up to sell locally grown organic food. Normally grocery stores take a big part of the profit margin, which makes it hard for farmers to make a profit from organic farming practices. Community markets help with this by cutting out the middleman and making it possible for small farmers to sell directly to consumers.
Start a community conservation group! This group can tackle concrete biodiversity problems of the community, like setting up beehives, facilitating the movement of animals, or restoring ecosystems.