As a place-based organization, APW locates our headquarters and operations within the village communities in which we work. As such, we are intimately familiar with the impoverished and harsh circumstances in which many rural people live. For these people, the stresses of poor harvests, inadequate clean water, deadly diseases and limited educational and economic opportunities often make the conservation of wildlife and natural resources a distant secondary priority.

At APW, we believe empowering local people to conserve biodiversity goes hand in hand with strategies to alleviate poverty. This means recognizing important linkages between the environment and development; for example, how poor water management leads to the proliferation of water-borne diseases like malaria or the important effects of women’s livelihoods on the natural environment. In addition to hiring locally, APW empowers villagers through:

As they say, “knowledge is power.” At APW, we respond to local requests for training in natural resource management, improved livestock husbandry, agricultural productivity, leadership training, health issues and more. We also facilitate the training of local game scouts and are actively engaged in improving primary school access to environmental education materials.  

Supporting Environmentally-Friendly Business Enterprises

One of the biggest challenges that villagers must address in escaping the poverty trap is the development of local economies that are sustainable in the long-term. Dangerously, many rural economies are based on rain-fed agriculture, with a precarious future due to the increasing effects of global warming. Therefore, APW is helping to diversify rural economies, with a particular emphasis on the role of women, the marketing of local crafts and the prospects of ecotourism.