Global Impact

Rare has trained more than 200 local conservation leaders from across the globe in its signature method for changing the way people relate to nature – the Pride campaign. Together, their campaigns have reached nearly 10 million people living in the world’s biodiversity hotspots, offering them the inspiration and tools needed to adopt more sustainable behaviors.

Rare and its local partners have created new protected areas, reduced forest fires and overfishing, increased adoption of more sustainable agriculture, launched community recycling programs and environmental groups, and saved multiple species on the brink of extinction.

Just a few examples of what local partners have achieved in the field:

  • • Established ten new Locally Managed Marine Areas to help protect one of the world’s richest marine ecosystems in Raja Ampat, Indonesia
     
  • • Turned local community resistance into support for a new national biosphere reserve in Janos, Mexico – one of North America’s most important grassland areas
     
  • • Sustainably-managed conservation zone created in partnership with local agricultural producers in a biodiversity hotspot in Namaqualand, South Africa
     
  • • Community-supported, federal reserve developed in important forest region of Palawan, Philippines
     
  • • 1M-acre national marine park created and dynamite fishing reduced in the biodiversity-rich Togean Islands of Indonesia
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Read more in-depth stories of success

In addition to measuring outcomes at the completion of each campaign, Rare tracks long term impact at key sites. For example, a 2006 study found that of the 8 Amazona parrot species featured in Pride campaigns throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, 6 (75%) are now thought to be increasing in population size. By contrast, among 13 similar Amazona parrot species that were not Pride flagship species, only one (8%) is currently thought to be increasing in population size, while 11 (85%) are thought to be decreasing. (P. Vaughan, 2006).

Rare’s impact on the larger global conservation movement is also considerable. Pride alumni now form a global network of local leaders who share a common methodology, a dedicated online platform for sharing challenges and solutions, and a toolbox for sustaining impact – as well as launching second and even third campaigns -- after the formal partnership with Rare has ended. Their successful “ground up” solutions are spurring the world’s largest international conservation groups to rethink how they engage local communities in their work. 

92% of alumni are still working in the conservation field.
 

52% of alumni have run second and third campaigns – funding and managing these projects on their own.
 

73% of alumni have sustained their campaigns after the formal relationship with Rare has ended.