Jean-Gaël "JG" Collomb says community-based conservation organizations know best how to tackle the complex conservation challenges unique to their ecosystems. However, they’re also among the most underserved in terms of funding of all stripes. On this week's episode of Mongabay's podcast, Collomb explains how his nonprofit, Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN), is working to change that.

When it comes to funding conservation," it's really difficult to know who to give your money to besides a handful of organizations that a lot of people are familiar with," Collomb says.

WCN facilitates partnerships between community-based conservation groups, primarily in Global South nations with funders, in what has previously been described as “‘venture capital for conservation,” or as Collomb says, “people invest in people.”

They are “the first actors,” he says. “We're huge fans of being able to encourage people to give unrestricted [funding] … those organizations who are based on the ground in the field know best how to use that money.”

Subscribe to or follow the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay website.

Please send questions, feedback or comments to podcast[at]mongabay[dot]com.

Banner image: Beach on Mioskon Island in Raja Ampat. Photo by Rhett Bulter/Mongabay.

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Timecodes

(00:00) Why community-based conservation?

(09:54) How WCN works

(14:10) The importance of unrestricted funding

(16:48) Transparency & ethics in philanthropy

(19:59) 30x30 and Indigenous sovereignty

(27:08) Scientific advancements

(31:16) Either/or

(35:33) USAID funding cuts

(40:29) Connecting with WCN

This week on Mongabay's podcast, celebrated author and repeat Nobel Prize in Literature candidate Robert Macfarlane discusses his fascinating new book, Is a River Alive?, which both asks and provides answers to this compelling question, in his signature flowing prose.

Its absorbing narrative takes the reader to the frontlines of some of Earth's most embattled waterways, from northern Ecuador to southern India and northeastern Quebec, where he explores what makes a river more than just a body of water, but rather a living organism upon which many humans and myriad species are irrevocably dependent — a fact that is often forgotten.

Regardless of whether humans see rivers as useful resources or living beings, Macfarlane says their great ability to rebound from degradation is demonstrable and is something to strive for.

" When I think of how we have to imagine rivers otherwise, away from the pure resource model, I recognize that we can reverse the direction of 'shifting baseline’ syndrome. We can make it ‘lifting baseline’ syndrome. We can make our rivers touchable, then swimmable, then drinkable again. Drinkable rivers. Imagine that!"

Subscribe to or follow the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay website.

Please send questions, feedback or comments to podcast[at]mongabay[dot]com.

Banner image: The author Robert Macfarlane. Photo by Bryan Appleyard. Courtesy of Robert Macfarlane.

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Timecodes

(00:00) The liquid asset story

(05:42) The beginning of the ‘hydrocene’

(12:49) Is a river alive?

(20:01) ‘Rights of nature’

(30:02) Landmarks of hope & looming threats

(35:41) ‘Slow violence’

(39:43) ‘A gathering that seeks the sea’

(45:13) Public waterways under private ownership

(48:59) How the Cuyahoga River caught fire

(53:58) Collective health over private wealth

Roughly a billion people enjoy coffee daily, and more than 100 million people rely on it for income. However, the coffee industry is the sixth-largest driver of deforestation and is also rife with human rights abuses, including the labor of enslaved persons and children. But it doesn't have to be this way, says this guest on the Mongabay Newscast.

Etelle Higonnet is the founder of the NGO Coffee Watch, having formerly served as a senior adviser at the U.S. National Wildlife Federation. The main commodity on her radar now is coffee. On this podcast episode, she explains how the industry can — and should — reform its practices.

"It's so simple … pay a living [a] living income wage," she says, " and a lot of human rights violations will just dry up."

To target deforestation, Higonnet says the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is "a beautiful law" that "simply put, would bar imports of coffee into the European Union if that coffee is tainted by deforestation or illegality. So, two things that are illegal off the top of my head are slavery and child labor."

Subscribe to or follow the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay website.

Please send questions, feedback or comments to podcast[at]mongabay[dot]com.

Image Credit: A cup of coffee with beans and a teaspoon on a stump tabletop. Image by Anja (cocoparisiene) from Pixabay (Pixabay Content License).

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Timecodes

(00:00) Coffee tied to slavery and deforestation

(07:03) How we can stop it

(12:36) Why are prices soaring?

(19:25) How the EUDR can help

(25:56) When will the EUDR come into effect?

(29:40) Why the coffee supply chain is simple

(33:54) What about certification schemes?

(37:46) What coffee drinkers can do to act