Sustainability and Conservation Education for Rural Areas (SCERA) has been working in the Amurum Forest Reserve, an Important Bird Area in Jos East LGA of Plateau State, since 2008. The organization is a membership-based organization with a Board of Trustees and a management team consisting of a National Coordinator, Operations Coordinator and Technical Coordinator. The organization is made up of conservation biologists, ecologists and conservation ambassadors, including members of protected area support zone communities.

SCERA’s expertise is in community engagement, stakeholder collaboration, capacity building, protected area management and biodiversity conservation and research. SCERA’s experience in community engagement and our approach to biodiversity conservation and protected area management has led to successful community-based conservation programmes in the Amurum Forest Reserve that have had long-lasting impacts. A community piggery established in 2012 by SCERA as part of a rural empowerment programme and co-managed with the community during a GEF-SGP funded project was fully handed over to the Laminga community on completion of the project after an agreed exit strategy. The piggery has since been expanded by the community and still exists seven years after the project ended.

SCERA is interested in understanding the underlying factors driving environmental change and environmentally negative behaviours. Scientific investigation therefore forms the basis of SCERA’s approach and community involvement an essential element. SCERA’s interventions over the years has been guided by research findings. A fuel-efficient stove project was initiated after a survey carried out identified cooking and commercial sales of fuelwood as the main reason for forest exploitation within and around the protected area. Another investigation of social and environmental problems led to a community development (construction of boreholes and establishment of a piggery) and tree planting / woodlot establishment programme that addressed youth unemployment and the absence of safe drinking water in communities, while tackling forest degradation. As a result of these interventions, communities were fully mobilised and gave support for the project and the management of the reserve.

SCERA works within and around protected areas and our belief is that nature is best conserved by people living closest to it. This forms the basis of SCERA’s sustainability plan and exit strategy, enabling long-lasting impacts of biodiversity conservation interventions.