Conservación Para Todos

Methods for managing protected areas (PA’s) are pretty outdated and obsolete, there is a need for innovation in this matter. Here are some related problems: usually, scientific research and PA’s management do not involve nor benefit local communities; communities around PA’s don’t always have access to work opportunities and they do not get involved with their natural environment; there is usually not enough funds to reach effective management and conservation goals. 

This is why we propose this tech-based solution for conservation, which, through inclusive technological innovation, will create new opportunities around PA’s, making their management and data collection more accessible, at the same time they boost local economic development. Also, our platform aims to attract donors worldwide.

If scaled globally, our solution could help communities around PA’s generate new economic opportunities and get involved with their natural environment, making them part of the management of these PA’s. 

In Capitán Prat Province, Chilean Patagonia, conservation efforts are ineffective and outdated and are carried out by foreigners, leaving out local communities.

People in this area (about 4,000 inhabitants) lack economic development opportunities;   there is a high rate of unemployment, alcoholism, and social issues. Even if PA’s make up 90% of this province’s surface, people don’t benefit from them, they don’t have the chance to get involved in these actions.

Also, bonds between these communities and their environment are scarce, as there are no instances for strengthening them (such as environmental education or participation in conservation).  

Moreover, climate change is affecting this area in many ways (retreat of Southern Patagonian Ice Field, loss of native wildlife, hazards for humans, etc.), but there’s little scientific information about this, making conservation efforts less effective.  

Globally, conservation methods are generally outdated and leave out local communities, affecting them in terms of economic development, opportunities, education, and natural hazards, magnifying climate change effects for both humans and the natural environment.  

Nevertheless, PA’s have a huge potential for development, but to make the most out of them, conservation methods need to be updated, using new, innovative technologies.

Our solution is an innovative technology that aims to improve conservation efforts effectiveness, using new methods for planning and developing PA’s management, involving social actors and providing them with new opportunities, listening to their needs, facilitating data collection and funding. 

This community conservation platform would offer local people access to innovative methods regarding sustainable development; entrepreneurship training tools; marketing for their products (related to tourism or locally produced products); contact with donors, financers, scientists, entrepreneurs, innovators, environmentalists; accessible methods for scientific data collection (for PA’s) and data publication; methods for PA’s creation, management and conservation; and environmental education activities and tools. 

The idea is to create a virtual platform, so content can be updated regularly, but we also plan on having physical brochures for people who don’t have access to electronic gadgets or prefer not to use them, so everyone can participate and benefit from this initiative. 

This tool also facilitates scientific and cultural data collection (which is needed to create and manage a PA). Our pilot project will be carried out at Pascua River PA, where data has already been collected by us, but the idea is to implement it in other areas where information is still missing. 

The population whose lives we are working to improve are the communities who live around PA’s in Capitán Prat Province, located in the villages (and around them, in case of the rural population) of Caleta Tortel and Villa O'Higgins. There are several groups (ranchers, farmers, fishermen, children, women, housewives, municipalities), but all of them have in common the fact that they live in a very isolated and inaccessible area, which has been left out from Chile's development process; there are almost no roads to get to Capitán Prat province (there is only one dirt road in bad conditions), there is poor phone and internet signal, there are not many jobs and there are not many services. Therefore, people who live in this area lack general opportunities, such as jobs, entertainment, education, innovation, services, healthcare, connection with the rest of the country, among others. 

Also, these people, even if they live surrounded by an incredible and unique natural environment, have almost no connection with their land, which is a pity, as they are missing all the goodnesses it has to offer, such as scenic beauty, recreation, environmental education, attachment, and pride of living in the area, sustainable economic development around conservation, community conservation, among others. At the same time, if they have no bonds with their natural landscape, they will not be able to appreciate its value and know how important it is to preserve it. 

Even if this Province has a big proportion of PA’s, its inhabitants have been excluded from the management and administration of these areas. In fact, conservation methods implemented here are very outdated, they need to be renewed with new paradigms. This brings three main problems or ways in which the population here is underserved. 

First, climate change is having a big impact on the area (for both humans and wildlife), but because of the lack of scientific information, there is almost no resilience in this matter, and natural hazards related to global warming are occurring more frequently every time. Some problems are droughts (it is hard to imagine because there are mighty rivers and streams, as well as Southern Patagonian Ice Field, but the rain has decreased drastically over the last years), where farmers and ranchers have been badly affected, and wildfires (in 2018, more than 20,000 hectares of native forest was lost), but because there is almost no data, it is difficult to build resilient communities and resilient ecosystems to face climate change.  

Second, there are no economic opportunities for people here, and many activities are harmful to the ecosystem (for example, ranchers use unsustainable cattle-raising methods, or some people make a living from -native -forest clearing, selling wood, as they don’t have any other options). 

Third, there is a lack of environmental and technological education in the area, causing an absence of attachment between communities and their natural environment, leaving out many opportunities and innovative initiatives. 

We have been working directly with these communities since 2012 (through municipalities), and that way we got to know their social context and understand their needs, their worries, and their problems. We have also worked with specific community members in specific aspects (such as school students in environmental education, women in small farming endeavors, ranchers in agro-tourism initiatives in their farms, among others). 

On the other hand, we have carried out multi-level work in this area, working with Chilean Army Officials, local government members, local school teachers, and Chile’s National Forest Company members, to understand the local context in all its dimensions and state the areas where support and development are needed the most. 

With all this work, understanding these communities’ needs, we elaborated this technology-based solution, which focuses on effective conservation and management of PA’s

at the same time, it offers opportunities for locals in terms of education, economic development, and scientific research. With this new tool we want to boost local development around conservation, and democratize PA’s management, where everyone can participate, contribute, make decisions, and benefit. We have taken into account the fact that it is a challenge to make this initiative universally accessible due to different contexts (some people don’t have access to technology, some people can’t read or write, some people live in very isolated areas, there is a difference in ages and preferences, etc), but that is why we will design this tool to make it easy to use, attractive and adaptable to all kinds of people, and it will have a virtual and a physical version. Also, we will have a permanent local support team in the area.

In terms of education, this platform will offer innovative tools to carry out different environmental education activities (both for children and adults) that adapt to their social, cultural, and environmental context. Regarding this, we plan on doing academic programs for local students (we have been doing this with foreign students over the last years), so they can experience their natural environment and learn from it.

The idea is to help community members engage with their natural environment, so they can get to know the importance it has (and the importance of conservation) and enjoy its unique scenic beauty. In this matter, we want the local community to take part in this conservation plan, taking into account their territorial perspective, their culture, their reality, and their conservation priorities. We want to learn from them and we want them to learn from us, acquiring new skills and knowledge.

Regarding our solution, we know that not everyone has the same access to technology, so we want to bring this opportunity to a much wider audience, through the adaptation of our platform (as stated before, having an online and physical version and adapting it to all kinds of people) and through training workshops, where people will learn (for example) how to use a mobile application, how to upload data to the internet, etc. 

In terms of sustainable economic development, our solution aims to boost ecosystem regeneration -so it can be more resilient -through economic activities; the idea is that development in this area is based on restoration rather than on depredation, with a circular economy system. This way, the platform will promote local-based initiatives, such as small-scale cattle raising (always taking into account ranchers’ context, adapting their traditional methods into more sustainable ones), sustainable tourism (entrepreneurship related to lodging, tours, gastronomy, crafting, etc). For this, we will host training workshops and supply all the resources needed in the platform.

Also, the platform will connect these local entrepreneurs with possible customers (this platform will also help in marketing their products and services) and financiers (donors will 

be able to “browse” through the platform and look for projects they are interested in financing). 

In terms of scientific research, our platform makes data collection easier, simpler, and more inclusive, where all community members can participate. At the same time, it will highlight local ecological knowledge. This way, scientific data will be easier to collect, and then a scientific team can systematize all the information into the platform. 

Overall, this technology-based solution is an innovative way of creating and managing PA’s, connecting different social actors online and in person, to systematize and direct these energies towards a common goal, from data collection to environmental education and sustainable economic development. People will have access to tools such as technical irrigation implements, financial management software, environmental education manuals, among others. At the same time, connecting different social actors through the platform will help finance these conservation initiatives. Covid proved that many initiatives can be carried out virtually, but conservation hasn’t been updated in this matter yet. 

Even though our target population is inhabitants of Capitán Prat Province in Chilean Patagonia, our solution is designed to be applied universally, to be adapted to all kinds of communities living around PA’s. Since we have been working in this area since 2012, we will first apply it here, but then we plan on making it scalable. 

Our problem is related to obsolete conservation practices that are ineffective in addressing climate change and building resilience. These practices exclude local communities, who don’t have access to development opportunities and have no engagement with their natural environment. 

Our solution is an innovative technology that will improve the effectiveness of PA’s conservation efforts, providing communities with new opportunities, building social and ecosystem resilience. 

Our target population is local people who don’t have many economic opportunities or bonds with their environment and could benefit from this innovative platform, working on PA’s management, sustainable tourism, climate change data collection, environmental education, etc. 

We are designing and testing our management tool on communities in Capitán Prat Province. We have been working with these communities for around ten years, doing scientific and cultural research, environmental education, community work, and conservation planning, to be able to design our product. 

We have also worked in similar projects with communities in Belize, Canada, Alaska, Namibia, Botswana, and Mongolia, so we are using all the experience we have on the design of our product, prioritizing community conservation, economic development based on conservation, environmental education and scientific research for climate change resilience.

Right now, the community where we are testing our product has around 4,000 people, but we plan to scale it in more advanced stages, using all the feedback we receive during this current stage, to fine-tune our product and deliver it to other communities in Patagonia, Chile and around the world.

Our solution aims to update environmental conservation methods (which are old-fashioned and obsolete), involving local communities. Traditionally, conservation excludes local people, leaving them out not just from decision making in the creation and management of PA’s, but also from new development opportunities and their bonding with the natural environment, generating a vicious circle of vulnerability (both for humans and ecosystems). 

Therefore, our solution could make changes in different aspects:

Our innovative technology will make conservation more effective, generating management plans with the community, restoring local ecological knowledge, and democratizing conservation as a whole. With all this, we are sure local people will be able to reach their highest potential in effective conservation efforts, generating more sustainable communities. 

Economically and markets, in this platform, entrepreneurs will be able to access a worldwide public to offer their products and services; consumers will be able to find sustainable, small-scale, and fairly generated products and services (at a fair price for entrepreneurs); and donors will be able to find social and environmental initiatives of their interest for funding. 

Regarding climate change adaptation, this innovative technology will facilitate data collection for creating PA’s and sharing data about climate change impacts to make better decisions and build more resilient communities.

In terms of education, our solution will offer environmental education activities for all ages (which at the same will train people in data collection, participating in conservation).

We are currently working in Capitán Prat Province, Chilean Patagonia, which has around 4,000 inhabitants. From these, we are working in two municipalities (Tortel and O’Higgins), which together have around 1,100 inhabitants in total. Most of these people (if not all) have benefited from our work in the area, as we have worked with them in different aspects (environmental education with children and women, sustainable farming and cattle raising with rural landowners, conservation plans with local governments, etc).

In one year, we plan to expand to the rest of the province, therefore serving around 4,000 people. As stated before, 90% of this province’s land cover consists of PA's, so our technology-based solution will be easily scalable in all of Capitán Prat. 

In five years, we plan on expanding to the rest of Chilean Patagonia, which has a total population of around 170,000 inhabitants, of which approximately 36,000 live in rural areas (and therefore, near PA’s). If possible (depending on how the solution goes), in five years we would also expand to other parts of Chile. 

It is important to mention that we cannot provide exact numbers (especially for people we will be serving in one and five years), because that depends on many factors, such as the interest of inhabitants in taking part in this solution, pandemic situation, and restrictions, social context, among others. 

We have organized the measurable indicators of this project divided into three stages. Initially, the objective is to determine the status quo from where we will start the measuring. In the second stage, we are going to monitor the initial data to improve or promote the activities with less rate of success. Finally, in the third stage, we will analyze with a global perspective all the data to measure the impact of all indicators among all the stages. 

Stage 1: 

- Variables of threats to biodiversity to measure in this project (species, populations, ecosystems)

- Number of participants and number of each focus group.

- Initial local environmental condition, level of technological and environmental education, economic activities, and average incomes, governance, and participation instances, issues of gender equality, and climate change local threats.

Stage 2:

- implementation of the initial version of the platform, a measure of the number of users and benefits for the community: incomes, education, access to governance decisions in protected areas.  

- New data for biodiversity and new protected areas supported by the platform (planning and management).

- Number of participants to the local workshops on Digital technology tools, Ecotourism, Environmental education, number of donors.

Stage 3: 

- Evaluation of all the indicators

- Identification of all contribute to local communities and local biodiversity and gaps to continue improving the platform

- Total of raised funds and local incomes through the platform, number of hectares protected, and level of protection to key biodiversity.

Full-time staff: One biologist, one geographer, one scientific coordinator, and science advisors team, one anthropologist, one finance and business manager, local fieldwork team, local authorities (municipalities, etc), designer, and one local coordinator.  

Part-time staff: programmer (IT team), one lawyer, one journalist, and influencers (for social media).

Since our team is very diverse and everyone has different backgrounds, we can say it has a big variety of skills and experience; we count on specialists in scientific research, innovation, social work, educational programs, leadership, knowledge about climate change, conservation planning, technology design, spatial analysis, cultural studies, among others. Also, everyone in our team has worked on similar projects (related to environmental conservation that empowers communities). Also, our team is always updated with new innovations, methods, academic research, and virtual platforms, and we are very motivated to work on these kinds of projects.

Everyone in our team is interested in education, local sustainable development, and conservation, and we all know it’s important to work along with communities and restore their local ecological knowledge, democratize conservation, and empower people. 

Regarding team members from Patagonia, their local ecological knowledge is very important for conservation and development; they are the ones who know the area the best and they are the ones who are directly affected by climate change and the lack of opportunities in the area. 

This is why our team is well-positioned to deliver this solution, because we complement people from Capitán Prat Province and outsiders, having all necessary skills and knowledge. Our team has accumulated more than ten years of experience in the field of conservation science in Patagonia. For instance, the team from Santiago can suggest using certain methods and tools to reach sustainability and resilience, but local people will adapt them to their context.

People in our team have different backgrounds and experiences -that is what we seek. For example, part of our team is from Santiago and others are from Capitán Prat Province, where they have a totally different reality and culture. We work with “gauchos”, women, children, ranchers, indigenous people, people with different educational backgrounds, rural and urban people, etc, valuing every team member.

Our team really appreciates this diversity because our differences contribute to creativity and innovation; we give everyone a voice and acknowledge everyone’s beliefs and points of view. In fact, we learn from one another: team members from Santiago provide team members from Patagonia with different skills and knowledge about innovative conservation, sustainable land use, and environmental education (among other matters), while team members from Patagonia provide members from Santiago with local ecological knowledge, local culture, and skills. In other words, we hold a bidirectional relationship between all members.

Some of our goals related to these values (we are already on the way to achieving them) are to provide inclusive leadership; bridge technological and educational gaps between members so everyone can start from the same page (through mentorships, workshops, and teamwork); respect one another, avoiding prejudices (avoiding hate, discrimination, superior attitudes or conflict) and keep on working with a diverse team (regarding race, gender, culture, backgrounds, etc). To achieve this, we want to keep on meeting diverse people, holding workshops and mentoring sessions. Overall, we want to use our differences to better achieve our goals and objectives.

We are applying for several reasons.

Firstly, we are looking for some funding for our project, especially to cover the platform design and creation costs. 

Secondly, we know that MIT has a lot to offer in terms of human resources (inspiration, guidance, networking, mentorship, coaching, etc) for projects like ours: we want to work with people and give them tools to empower them, make the most out of their abilities and projects, at the same time we preserve and restore one of the most pristine places on Earth, all through an innovative platform. That is why we want MIT's guidance, as we know this institution has a lot of experience in sustainable development around the world and having a positive impact. 

Also, as we want local people to develop small-scale businesses and sell their products (boutique tourism services and local goods), exposure in the media and networking would be really useful.

Our overall solution consists of an online platform and mobile application, where users can offer their products and services and receive training and mentorship. On the other hand, customers can browse through the products entrepreneurs have to offer, look at scientific data in an interactive way, and find ways to donate (through the conservation fund).

Therefore, access to software resources (both technical and human) would be of great support for our project, as we are designing an innovative technology around conservation that can be accessible and easy to use for everyone, considering internet limitations and technology gaps. 

Firstly, we need support related to human capital to develop the platform, in order to make it user-friendly. 

Another way in which we need human capital is for training and mentoring local people in matters of entrepreneurship (for their economic projects for sustainable economic development) and technology use (specifically for using the platform).

Furthermorermore, we need human capital for environmental education (to generate innovative activities, methods, and workshops) and for carrying out scientific research.

Secondly, we need public relations support and partners to connect with worldwide customers (marketing the products and services offered by the locals) and donors, to generate a network of people who value high-quality products that are ethically made and conservation initiatives. 

Thirdly, support in monitoring and evaluation is necessary for collecting scientific data related to climate change and PA’s baseline. After data collection, we need support for analyzing this data and measuring the impact climate change has on the area, to make informed decisions regarding adaptation, achieving this way resilient ecosystems and communities. Even though our team specializes in scientific data collection and analysis, it is always good to complement skills and knowledge with other partners. 

Lastly, we need partners and support in the design and development of the online platform, which will also have a mobile application, to make it universally accessible, attractive, and easy to use for everyone, making sure technology gaps are not a limitation when it comes to using this platform.

We would like to potentially partner with MIT Economics (to create networks and work in market strategy), the School of Engineering and Management, and Sloan School of Management (for skills and knowledge on entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership, innovative technology, marketing, communication, development and scale our solution), Environmental Solutions Initiative (for skills and knowledge on environmental sustainability and climate change resilience), Institute of Data, Systems and Society (to address problems by combining methods from computing, engineering and social sciences for our platform), and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (for skills and knowledge on biological and scientific research).

Potential Solve Members we'd like to partner with are Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Anant National University, The Nature Conservancy (for diverse scientific workforce and public engagement with science, generating climate change solutions), Future Planet Capital, The Elevate Prize (to help entrepreneurs work sustainably and support their funding), Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research, BHP Foundation, Oxford Science for Innovation (for sustainable agriculture and farming methods), Stand Together, Strada Educational Network (for innovative methods to implement education, workshops and training to empower communities sustainability, scientific research, business and conservation management), SAP (to support our digital platform), HP (to provide communities with laptops), Olam International (to support entrepreneurs sell their products under fair trade conditions), Women’s WorldWide Web (to empower and support communities’ women and girls reach their full potential), and the United Nations Environment Programme (to get involved in greater conservation networks and to receive support in environmental activities to achieve sustainable development).

Our solution seeks to empower women and girls through technological innovation in different ways;

Firstly, through different workshops and training, we want to give women different tools to start their own entrepreneurial projects related to sustainable tourism and selling of local products, so they can become economically independent and make the most of their potential, creativity, and abilities. Also, our innovative technology will enable them to connect with people from different parts of Chile and the world, to offer their products and services, access mentorships and tools on different subjects, and apply for funding. 

In the area of the project, women usually stay at home doing chores and raising their children, being left out from work opportunities, personal growth, and realization. As women have fewer opportunities, they also have less access to technology and education, being left behind from even more opportunities, so we want to use this platform to bridge the gap for them, through personalized mentorships and training in technology education. 

Also, when women stay at home, they are kept from exploring their surroundings. That is why we aim to not just empower women and give them tools to be more independent, but also to help them get to know their unique landscape and bond with the environment through environmental education and scientific research. In this matter, as our solution aims to democratize environmental conservation -as communities will have bigger participation and voice in managing PA’s -we propose giving women additional instances to dialogue and raise their voice.