Photo by Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation 

This week, with the release of our new website, we are now ready to share our story and begin to galvanise action on environmental challenges around the world.   

Our vision is to support communities working with nature to build a sustainable future for all.  

Our aim is to facilitate long term, productive relationships between corporate supporters and individual communities seeking input on projects linked to the environment or sustainable development.  

As we build our network of supporters and communities around the world, our focus will be on bringing communities and their supporters together to co-create solutions that deliver results. Every project we back will deliver on environmental education, conservation or regeneration; or around sustainable economic activity.   

This is a fresh approach, but through our long-standing connection with the PRRCFI we have seen just how effective it is when local communities lead the way in establishing front line educational and environmental projects.  

What happens next?  

With the LMAX / PRRCFI partnership up and running and already delivering results we’re actively exploring new opportunities.  

If you are a corporate looking for a chance to make a meaningful difference in conservation or sustainable development we want to hear from you.  

If you’re a community with a project you would like to get off the ground, then contact us.  

Let’s build a sustainable future for us all.  

Photo by Jax Oliver / Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation 

The Foundation, its schemes on and outside of Danjugan, is the first initiative supported by Communities for Nature. 

The Foundation recently entered into a one-year funding relationship with LMAX Group, a global financial technology company and the leading independent operator of multiple institutional execution venues for FX and crypto currency trading. The relationship between the Foundation and LMAX will be channelled into education on sustainable development and providing local communities with the tools for ecotourism. This will include sustainability scholarships, conservation research, and capacity-building sessions and equipment support for ecotourism.

PRRCFI manages and protects Danjugan Island, which was purchased by the Foundation with the help of the World Land Trust and the Land Bank of the Philippines’ first environment loan to protect the island’s marine ecosystems significant to local biodiversity but vulnerable to climate-related threats. The Foundation offers a wide-ranging selection of experiential environmental education courses, such as the marine and wildlife camps for young people and public awareness initiatives like the Wala Usik Challenge 2022, a multinational hackathon seeking solutions for how to reduce use of single use plastic packaging. 

You can read more details about PRRCFI’s partnership with LMAX group here, and about its activities on the Foundation’s website here.  

Photo by Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation 

Communities for Nature has helped arrange a new partnership between LMAX Group, the global financial technology company and the leading independent operator of multiple institutional execution venues for FX and crypto currency trading, and the Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation Inc. (PRRCFI).

This one year ‘Actions for Communities and Environment’ partnership between the UK-based financial tech company and Filipino Foundation was announced earlier this year, just as PRRCFI was celebrating 28 years of its conservation work. In a fitting recognition of this legacy, the new partnership with LMAX will allow PRRCFI to both continue and strengthen its leading conservation and educational work and realise its vision of wildlife and people in harmony for a sustainable future. 

Funding from the new joint initiative will be channelled into education on sustainable development and providing local communities with the tools for ecotourism. This will include sustainability scholarships, conservation research, and capacity-building sessions and equipment support for ecotourism. 

PRRCFI works with local communities in the marine protected area of Danjugan Island, Brgy. Bulata, Cauayan, and Negros Occidental, in the Philippines on a whole range of biodiversity conservation, education and sustainable development initiatives. You can read more about PRRCFI’s work and history here.

Photo by Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation 

The landscape – in both senses of the word – has changed since 1968 and the consequences of our depletion of the planet’s resources are coming upon us in ever more frequent and extreme ways, but the sentiment of Dioum’s statement holds fast. Protecting our planet and its natural resources is a collective responsibility, but one we can meet with the dual personal approach of education and experience. 

I can attest to this myself. In the early noughties I spent nearly four years as the Island Manager and Education officer for Danjugan Island, a 43-hectare conservation area at the heart of the Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation Inc. (PRRCFI). The experience was formative and, in the time since, has catalysed into the existence of Communities for Nature. I was thrilled when the PRRCFI agreed to partner with corporate supporter LMAX – the first relationship established by the fledgling Communities for Nature. It’s a partnership that’s already illustrating the power of our model and having local communities shape the kind of support they need.  

The climate and biodiversity crises are the defining issues of our time and the wide-reaching and intricate web of causation and effect warrants a global response. We know this, and at Communities for Nature we are seeking to facilitate the response by fostering not only funding channels but close collaboration and knowledge sharing between local communities on the front line of conservation and their partners located around the world. 

Becoming a Communities for Nature partner means having the chance to work closely with those on the front line of conservation toward shared goals. Being a community supported by a Communities for Nature project is to benefit from purposeful funding, ringfenced to tackle your specific priorities.  

There’s much to do, from traditional conservation work, to teaching skills for a sustainable economy, to solving the proliferation of single use plastics (the Philippines, for example, use a staggering 60 million single-use plastic sachets a year, according to a 2019 study). Fortunately, the wheels are in motion, and many more pieces of the puzzle can be secured by channeling global resources to working hand in glove with local communities. Meaningful and directional action bridges the gap between on the ground expertise and passionate organisations elsewhere in the world, using increased understanding and emotional connections to achieve the commitment to conservation Dioum spoke about over half a century ago. 

It fills me with great joy to consider the future that lies before Communities for Nature, our local communities and our partners. Together we can make a difference with environmental education and providing investment into sustainable futures, so I hope you remain with us on our journey. 

The Year We Made Space