Collaborators #
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ICCA Consortium
“The ICCA Consortium is a global membership-based association dedicated to supporting Indigenous Peoples and local communities who are protecting, conserving, and defending their collective lands and territories of life. They have organisational Members and individual Honorary members in more than 80 countries around the world, and observer status with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Economic and Social Council.” They support the community of Massaha in their “historic initiative to save their intact sacred forest from industrial logging and become Gabon’s first formally recognised community conserved area.” NADA is honoured to be the first member of the ICCA Consortium in Gabon.
Network of Indigenous and Local Populations for the Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa (REPALEAC)
NADA is a member of REAPLEAC, “is a sub-regional civil society organization and a platform bringing together Civil Society Organizations working for good governance and sustainable management of forests in Central Africa”, where we exchange experiences with other members on community conservation.
Gabonese Research Institute for Tropical Ecology (IRET)
This research branch of the Gabonese government works with NADA as a social-ecological laboratory – to test innovative participatory approaches to science, ask novel questions with direct implications to national policy, and mentor Gabonese graduate students.
Gabon Ministry of Forestry
NADA works closely with Gabonese policy-makers in the Ministry of Forestry, providing data to inform novel legal frameworks enabling equitable and sustainable hunting and to formalize the recognition and protection of territories of life throughout Gabon.
Gabonese National Parks Agency (ANPN)
Gabon has one of the world’s most spectacular networks of national parks. NADA is privileged to work near Ivindo National Park – a UNESCO World Heritage site. NADA works closely with park authorities to better integrate local community management within the park, and aims for the lessons learned from this collaboration to be applied in other parks across the country. For example, we tested our innovative approach to community cartography in a project probing the expansion of conservation action the north of Batéké Plateau National Park in another corner of the country.
University of Omar Bongo (UOB)
UOB is Gabon’s largest public university. NADA plays an active role mentoring graduate students, supporting their scientific development through hands-on research projects from the field to publication. The long-term success of conservation in Gabon is contingent on young Gabonese researchers having the support they need to thrive.
Poulsen Tropical Ecology Lab, Duke University
Our close collaboration continues today – this ongoing partnership uniquely positions NADA to challenge the conservation status quo, and contribute to the decolonization of the research process.
Institute of geography and sustainability (IGD), University of Lausanne
“At the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), the IGD develops fundamental and applied research, provides training in research and intervenes in the public debate on major contemporary issues of sustainability. The IGD relies on its expertise in different environments (cities, margins, mountains, etc.) and approaches the processes of societal, territorial and environmental transformation by integrating skills in geography and human and social sciences.” NADA collaborates with IGD on research projects including the mapping of biocultural forest histories.
Seeds of Good Anthropocenes
NADA is honoured to be included in the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes Project, which a network which works to “help the global community develop inspirational visions and stories, with the potential to be key components of transformations to sustainability, helping to shape the very reality that they forecast. We do this by looking to the emergence of new thinking, innovative ways of living, and different means to connect people and nature that already exist”.
Paul K. Feyerabend Foundation
“The Paul K. Feyerabend Foundation promotes the empowerment and wellbeing of disadvantaged human communities. By strengthening intra and inter-community solidarity the Foundation strives to improve local capacities, promote the respect of human rights, and sustain cultural and biological diversity.” With NADA the Foundation supports “four villages to document, manage and defend their territories of life while creating solidarity between them through the exchange of experience and mutual learning.”
Luc Hoffman Institute
“The Luc Hoffmann Institute is a catalyst for innovation and transformative change to maintain biodiversity. They create the conditions for new approaches to emerge, identify and mobilise the most promising innovators and ideas, and provide a flow of impactful, de-risked and exciting initiatives for investors.” NADA’s head of gender policy was a winner of their 2022 future of conservation NGOs Innovation Challenge, laying the foundation for a inter-community platform that will support rural women across Gabonese villages in documenting, managing, and defending the biocultural diversity of their territories of life, and to create solidarity among them through the exchange of experiences and mutual learning.
Little Environmental Action Foundation (LEAF)
“The LEAF Charity works with communities around the world to protect habitats and promote reforestation.” With NADA they have embarked on a biocultural giant project, starting with supporting two leading communities to “learn and grow from each other in solidarity to protect and restore their ancestral forests”.
Borneo Project
“The Borneo Project brings international attention and support to community-led efforts to defend forests, sustainable livelihoods, and human rights.” We at NADA exchange insights with the Borneo Project on their Baram Heritage Survey, which like us uses paraecology to collect data for community-driven natural resource management.
Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI)
This North Carolina based partnership of three major universities has the “mission is to forge a synthesis of the statistical sciences and the applied mathematical sciences with disciplinary science to confront the very hardest and most important data- and model-driven scientific challenges”. We worked with SAMSI and Duke’s Master in Interdisciplinary Data Science (MIDS) program to develop novel participatory forecasting tools for communities in Gabon and across the globe to predict and adapt their management of common-pool resources.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)
“An agency of the US federal government dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats”, USFWS provided the funding through two grants to Duke to start the innovative work that NADA is building upon today.
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
“The major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering research in Canada”, NSERC provided funding for a doctorate that contributed to NADA’s bushmeat research.