We chose the name “ConserVentures,” which is a combination of “conservation” and “venture” and “adventure,” because we have seen first-hand that people can make an enormous difference for conservation through education and exploration.

The more we connect to other places and other cultures, the more we learn, and the more we share in the challenges of global conservation—and the more we can get done.

Can it really be that simple?

Locally initiated, locally based, globally important

Early on in her career in conservation, founder Roseann Hanson realized two important things. The first is that the classic “first world” approach to conservation—setting aside new national parks and excluding local people and sustainable activities such as pastoralism, logging, and other means of income—creates many more problems in the long-run than it solves in the short-term. For one, local antipathy toward conservation, which is seen as elitist and exclusive, can be devastating. This includes the myth that “Wilderness” means “no people,” despite the fact that many of the world’s most ecologically important regions are “working wildernesses” where people still live traditional lifestyles. People (or, more accurately, our increasingly industrialized activities) are always part of the conservation problem; excluding people from the solution will not help matters.

The second is that acquiring large foundation and government grants, or even private cash, for conservation is not nearly enough to solve the world's most pressing problems, which transcend endangered species crises and include:

1. ❖ Crushing poverty;
   

2. ❖ Widespread environmental degradation from human population growth & migrations due to war and economic crises;
   

3. ❖ Dwindling basic resources like water and fuel for cooking or home lighting;
   

4. ❖ Lack of basic education and skills to cope in a fast-paced, sophisticated global economy;
   

5. ❖ Pressure to leave traditional livelihoods, which often feeds the cycle of poverty and environmental degradation.
   

Roseann saw first-hand that some of the most effective conservation strategies to fight these problems came from grassroots projects, for which funds were raised $5 to $50 at a time, rather than the big million-dollar projects, which got mired in bureaucracy and greed for more dollars.

When local people initiated the projects, became invested in them through their own funds, however small, and saw tangible results, the projects were much more successful.

Conservation and travel = support for local communities

East Africa, northern Mexico, Eastern Europe, the high steppes of Asia . . . all are regions where traditional cultures such as pastoralists and fishermen are still holding on, and all are hotspots of ecological importance.

It is no coincidence that in places like East Africa, the Maasai’s pastoral livelihoods are directly tied to high concentrations of wildlife due to their long and important role in the landscape. Where these ties are breaking down, due to hard economic times or pressure to sell off land to outsiders, the land and wildlife and ultimately people suffer.

Many local communities are establishing in these regions their own income-generating projects that are tied to conservation, from ecotourism to research tourism to art and bushcraft ventures.

The goal of ConserVentures is to encourage and assist people in traveling to those places and supporting the ecotourism and conservation work through not only income but also by providing connections to people and institutions who can help in tangible ways: examples include providing training for a budding women’s group in how to manage finances for their new ecotourism business; connecting a local Maasai gamescout program to people who can provide them with radios and uniforms and get the training they need; and connecting a community to an architectural firm that can help them design their dream ecotourism camp.

Science tourism, citizen science, and voluntourism are other growing genres of ecotourism. All support researchers who work with local communities, finding solutions to local problems while adding to worldwide conservation knowledge. ConserVentures has worked with Cincinnati Zoo and Earth Expeditions, as well as Biosphere Expeditions, to introduce them to projects they can help support through science tourism or voluntourism.

Finally, ConserVentures specifically seeks out true community-based efforts, in areas that are strategically important for larger conservation goals. A perfect example is the Rancho Aribabi project in northern Sonora, Mexico (below): a 10,000 acre privately owned ranch, whose owner is attempting to conserve it through ecotourism. The ranch is home to jaguars and ocelots. Without help marketing his property and its lodge and cabins, he may not succeed.

So is it really that simple?

Probably not in the details, and yet, in essence, it is. All you have to do is join us today—and become part of our growing community of “venture conservationists,” who want to get involved, person-to-person. And the only way to do that is to get out there and explore!

Explore     |     Connect     |     Protect