Rhett Ayers Butler – Stop telling people to protect wildlife. Start paying them instead. That's the idea in a new experiment in Kapuas Hulu district, in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province, which is testing whether conservation can be made to work with local incentives rather than against them.
The initiative, known as KehatiKu, asks residents to record wildlife sightings in exchange for modest payments. In its first year, the program has generated a large volume of data while drawing hundreds of participants into regular contact with the forests around them, reports contributor Linnea Hoover for Mongabay.
The premise is straightforward. Participants download an app and use it to submit photos, audio or video of animals they encounter. Payments vary by species, from a few thousand rupiah for common birds, to more substantial sums for rarer animals such as orangutans. Observations are verified before payments are distributed at month's end. The process is simple enough to fit into daily routines, yet structured enough to produce usable data.
The scale is notable. More than 800 observers across nine villages have recorded roughly 300 to 400 sightings a day. That has produced a data set covering species from hornbills to gibbons. The cost, by the standards of conservation programs, is low. Biologist Erik Meijaard, managing director of Borneo Futures, the scientific consultancy that organizes the project, estimates spending of less than $1 per hectare (40 U.S. cents per acre) annually across a 200,000-hectare (nearly 500,000-acre) area.
The effects extend beyond data collection. In some villages, residents have begun to discourage hunting and trapping. Informal agreements have taken hold, supported by the new income stream tied to living wildlife. For a few participants, the activity has become a primary source of earnings, comparable to or exceeding typical local wages.
The approach reflects a frustration with earlier efforts. Large sums have been spent on species protection, with mixed results. KehatiKu attempts a different route, placing small, direct incentives in the hands of those who encounter wildlife most often.
Early results suggest that modest incentives can shift attention and, in some cases, behavior. If that alignment between livelihoods and living wildlife holds, it may offer a practical model for conservation that grows from the interests of the people most closely tied to the forest.