Together for Conservation (Conservando Juntos) Project

Together for Conservation has four strategy approaches (SAs):

1. Strengthen regional networks and collaborative communities to accelerate cross-learning processes and the adoption of solutions and best practices, expanding reach and impact.
2. Foster private stakeholders and IPLC engagement in legal and sustainable economic activities to facilitate sustainable and gender-sensitive production value chains to reduce potential conditions that facilitate the supply, transport, and demand for illegal or unsustainable goods and services in the Amazon.
3. Strengthen IPLC organisations' capacities to manage and defend their territories.
4. Strengthen media outlets, journalist networks, IPLC organisations, and other CSOs to foster active civic engagement and expand and increase their effectiveness in promoting, demanding, and overseeing government and private sector efforts concerning transparency and conservation crimes.

Internews, an international media support organisation, is implementing SA 4 based on collaborative work between the South America team of the Americas Program Unit and the Earth Journalism Network (EJN) and will be incorporating lessons learned and experience working with CSOs, media outlets, journalists, Indigenous peoples, and local communities in the region.

Internews is carrying out a range of activities to strengthen media capacity in the Amazon by building and expanding networks of journalists, IPLC organisations, and other CSOs to promote more in-depth investigations and improve reporting on environmental crimes. These capacity-building initiatives are designed to support the media and IPLCs to safely expose - and, ultimately, prevent - transnational conservation crimes such as illegal logging, species trafficking, illegal fishing, and illegal mining and to defend their territories and conserve biodiversity in the region. It is also hoped that the project will engender increased trust in the press and a culture of greater transparency and accountability in a region where corruption and crime often prevails with impunity.

Media- and communication-focused activities undertaken by Internews include:

• Developing Information Ecosystem Assessments (IEAs) in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil to analyse how local communities access and share information about conservation crimes in the Amazon - identifying what sources they trust and where there are gaps in public knowledge. As of May 2023, two IEAs have been initiated in Brazil. Implemented by local partner IEB - Instituto Internacional de Educação do Brasil, one IEA is being conducted in the metropolitan region of Manaus-Manacapuru, focusing on the chain of fishing and capture of chelonians. The second evaluation, implemented by ITS Rio - Institute of Technology and Society of Rio de Janeiro, will analyse the Citizen Science Network for Amazonia, with a zoom into the network's node in Santarém.
• Carrying out Rapid Organizational Capacity Assessments (ROCAs) to strengthen the management capacity of selected organisations in the Together for Conservation focus geographies. Internews has carried out ROCAs in Ecuador with two indigenous organisations (Nacionalidad Sapara del Ecuador (NASE) and Comunidad Ancestral San Jacinto de Pindo) and in Brazil with Casa do Rio - Radio Floresta and UPIMS, an indigenous organisation based in the state of Amazonas.
• Promoting quantity and quality coverage of conservation crimes and the possible solutions and expanding the scope of investigative reporting on conservation crimes through media grants and journalistic reports with EJN's support. The project works to boost the capacities of IPLCs and CSOs to report and disseminate information about the issue, particularly in the programme's focus countries. As of 2023, the first editions of the story and media grants have been completed. In the case of the story grants, 24 selected journalists from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil are now working on their stories. For the media grants activity, the call closed on February 9 2023 with 82 applications, and the four selected organisations from the four countries are getting ready to start their projects.
• Providing tools and training to journalists and civil society activists working in the Amazon so they can more safely and effectively report and disseminate information to counter conservation crimes, in light of increasing physical and digital threats. For example, in April 2023, Internews launched the training course "Digital Security for Building in Community". In addition, Agenda Propia is incorporating learnings from dialogues with indigenous representatives from the four Together for Conservation countries into the trainings it will facilitate in late 2023. Between March and April 2023, InfoAmazonia started a course on investigative journalism. Partner Escola de Dados also launched the course "Environmental Data Journalism: on the Amazon Deforestation Trail". It reached 652 participants in Brazil.

Media Development, Environment