Rare Annual Report
2016
Cover image: Pride event in Mercedes on Caringo Island, Philippines.
Right Image: Misool, Indonesia.
Table of Contents
Letter from the CEO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Hope for Brazil’s Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Amid Olympic Environmental Concerns in Rio, Bright Spots in Marine
Sustainability Signal Hope for Brazil’s Coast
Pride in the Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Seven Rare Fellows Drive Community-Powered Conservation in Colombia
One Country’s Climate Change Strategy May Save Its Coasts . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Mozambique Makes Sustainable Coastal Fishing Part of its Plan to Combat
Worsening Climate Change Effects
From the Coast to the Capital Pride Goes National . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
As Rights-Based Fisheries Management Finds its Moment in Indonesia, the National
Government’s Ministries Teamed Up with Rare to Celebrate the Start of a National
Pride Campaign for Fish Forever
Financials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Leadership & Trustees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
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Letter from the CEO
This year Rare advanced its mission – inspiring change so people and nature thrive – by protecting
watersheds, restoring small-scale fisheries, and increasing organic agriculture practices. We also made
significant advancements in building capabilities that will make us be more effective and efficient in
future years. Thank you for supporting our work.
Protecting Watersheds: Colombia
Colombia is a megadiverse country, hosting close to 10% of the Earth’s biodiversity. It has the most
bird species of any country (more than 1,800!) – more than North America and Europe combined.
It also has the most orchid species, and its diversity of other plants, amphibians, and butterflies ranks
second globally.
Colombia is also at a pivotal moment in its history. Having endured a harrowing 50-year civil war,
President Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC) recently
finalized a peace accord. Peace will unleash a wave of economic growth and bring more benefits to
the Colombian people; however, this growth will come at an ecological price. A growing industrial
agricultural frontier, land conversion, and increasing cattle production all combine to threaten critical
habitats and another of Colombia’s greatest assets: its freshwater supply. Addressing these threats,
especially in the cloud forest communities around major cities, is why the Valle de Cauca department
(i.e. state/province) invited Rare to bring Pride campaigns for watershed protection to Colombia.
Rare and its partners work with local communities to sign and implement innovative reciprocal
agreements for upstream habitat protection, critical to sustaining regional freshwater sources.
This year, seven newly minted Rare Conservation Fellows concluded their three-year Pride campaigns
designed to forge such alliances. Each Fellow worked with water users, farmers, landowners, and
municipal governments to protect habitat important to biodiversity and to ensure clean freshwater
flows. All Fellows are employees of the Corporación Valle de Cauca (CVC), the quasi-governmental
natural resources manager in the Valle de Cauca with which Rare is now expanding the program.
Immediate outcomes from the seven Pride campaigns are impressive. The Fellows:
• Negotiated and signed 39 water agreements (contracts with landowners to protect land important
to water), protecting 2,384 acres of critical habitat
• Conserved 46 kilometers of riparian habitat, the land most important to clean water flows
• Leveraged an estimated $6M from technical services to support watershed protection
Rare also tracks data on leading indicators of behavior change, especially interpersonal communication,
because it is the most critical facet of human behavior change. Upstream landowners who reported
having a recent conversation about the value of forest and streamside vegetation for water increased
from 39.5% to 89.7% over the course of the campaigns, and it tripled among the downstream water
users, climbing 42.8 percentage points from 20% to 62.8%. These results will likely increase as the
Fellows, who remain full-time staff at CVC, continue their work.
Sustainable Agriculture: China
This year Rare re-invigorated its China program, focusing on organic agriculture. Agriculture is the
leading cause of water pollution in China. China is the world’s leading cotton producer and both the
largest importer and consumer of cotton globally. However, cotton production in China has traditionally
relied on heavy usage of chemical pesticides and fertilizers that jeopardize the environment and
reduce long-term prospects of sustainable incomes for small-scale farmers.
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Our objective is to double organic cotton production in China in the next five years. We ran a pilot with
the C&A Corporation, the largest buyer of organic cotton globally, to convert a plot that previously
had heavy pesticide use into organic farming. In the first two seasons, we harvested 15,236 kilograms
of cotton from which we extracted 4,836 kilograms of cotton fiber. C&A then produced and sold in its
stores 30,000 t-shirts with proceeds benefiting environmental conservation. Our first organic agriculture
pilot was a big success.
Restoring Small-Scale Fisheries (Fish Forever): Belize, Brazil, Indonesia,
Mozambique and the Philippines
Fish Forever is the largest, most comprehensive conservation effort in Rare’s history. After just five
years, it may also be the world’s largest philanthropic-funded effort to restore small-scale fisheries.
It is a global program focused on coastal areas where economies, nutrition, and culture are directly
dependent on the health of the near-shore fisheries.
Because this is a long-term program, we are carefully measuring leading indicators to assess
whether we are on the right path. Here are indicators from 2016:
• Rare has implemented Fish Forever in a total of 72 communities across five countries.
• In Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines, Fish Forever Pride campaigns are already influencing 6%, 7%,
and 8%, respectively, of the coastal communities nationwide where fishery recovery is possible.
• 27 communities have designed and approved a suite of new management approaches, putting
their fisheries on a path to recovery.
• Communities designed 11 new no-take fishing areas in Brazil – areas that are biologically important
and are therefore prohibited from being fished.
• Early fish recovery data from eight sites in the Philippines shows stabilization (i.e. halt of the rapid
decline in fish) in four sites and a 600% average increase in biomass in two others.
• In Belize, Rare supported the national government as it designed, endorsed and enacted an
unprecedented nationwide small-scale fisheries zoning plan.
• Eight national government agencies across five countries adopted the Fish Forever concept, further
boosting our ability to help achieve sustainable fisheries nationwide.
• Rare launched 3 pilots which use market-based incentives to accelerate change and leverage
private capital.
• Initiated work on a for-profit $20M impact investment fund to improve small-scale fisheries.
Building for the Future
When we set out to bring Fish Forever to national scale in five countries, we had a vision but not a
precise roadmap. What’s exciting about taking on ambitious new programs is what one discovers
along the way. This year, we identified our pathway to scale:
A. Building demand at a national level so governments eventually adopt and propagate the program
As a terrific piece in the Winter 2017 Stanford Social Innovation Review says, “Nonprofit organizations
need to start by recognizing that innovative social programs don’t simply sell themselves. Getting a
new idea adopted, even when it has proved to be effective, is often very difficult, but not impossible.”
This year, we built a great deal of demand among national ministries, in addition to scores of
local communities.
In 2016, while continuing to implement Pride campaigns – the core of all Rare’s programs – we also
began partnering with national government agencies in order to boost adoption and propagation of
our programs. To this end, five agencies now have staff trained in Rare’s methodology. In Mozambique,
for example, our Fish Forever team is now housed within an Institute of the Ministry of the Sea, Inland
Water and Fisheries. We have physically been adopted.
B. Continually boost the effectiveness and efficiency of programs
The second pillar of our strategy for scale is improving the “cost per impact” of Rare’s programs.
This year we began testing the first radically-different program model with a suite of 17 Pride campaigns
in the Philippines’ Tañon Strait. Our estimates show potential cost reductions of 60-80%. Achieving
conservation impact is not guaranteed at the current cost – we may have to invest more, but we are
optimistic. Moreover, this pilot will provide valuable insights into ways we can reduce costs and
boost effectiveness.
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C. Begin to blend private capital and public funding to finance our work at scale
We also explored this year how to finance Fish Forever at a national scale. Clearly, it will not be through
philanthropy alone. As Michael Bloomberg said in the New York Times, “All the billionaires added
together are, as they’d say, bupkis compared to the amount of money that government spends. It’s
trillions of dollars. Private philanthropy can’t do that.” For Rare, philanthropy is critical to proving that
Fish Forever will rebound coastal fisheries in order to “de-risk” the sector, so that private investors
become more willing to invest private capital, and national governments have evidence that their
budget allocations will have significant returns in societal and environmental improvements.
To this end we launched two new initiatives this year. The first is a collaboration with the Philippines
National Economic Development Agency (NEDA). Together we are conducting a Return on Investment
(ROI) analysis of nationwide small-scale fishery recovery, which we hope will make the case for a
major financial investment. Findings from the analysis will be available in 2017.
The second initiative is the Meloy Fund for Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in Southeast Asia, a firstof-its-kind $20M impact investment fund focused on Indonesia and the Philippines. This will help create
financial incentives and public-private collaborations in order to benefit local fishing communities and
protect critical ocean habitat.
Looking Ahead to 2017
In the coming year, I’m looking forward to continuing to see the initial results of Fish Forever. I am
also excited about the prospects for post-conflict conservation in Colombia, and organic agriculture
in China. There are also two new areas of work you will be hearing more about from Rare in 2017:
climate change and behavior change, and clearly they are related.
Climate Change
Much of Rare’s current work directly addresses climate change either by reducing greenhouse gases
through habitat restoration or by advancing climate adaptation, making communities more resilient to
weather shocks. The attached report provides a thorough view of these contributions. In the coming
year we will demonstrate measurable adaptation and mitigation outcomes and we will deepen our
commitment to weaving mitigation and adaptation into all our programs.
Behavioral Sciences
Rare has been conservation’s leading behavior change group for more than 30 years. More than
300 NGOs and government agencies are currently using elements of Rare’s approach to promote
adoption of new, sustainable behaviors. In recent years, new insights across economics, psychology,
and neuroscience have transformed global understanding of human behavior and decision-making.
This shift is creating a growing demand for insights and expertise, and Rare seeks to meet this need
within the environmental sector. We are motivated by the opportunity not only to strengthen our own
methodologies for behavior change, but also to help build the field.
More on this in 2017.
Thank you again for your support this year. On behalf of Rare staff and partners – and especially the
biodiversity and communities who cannot tell you themselves – thank you.
Brett Jenks
President and CEO
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stories
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Amid Olympic Environmental Concerns in Rio,
Bright Spots in Marine Sustainability Signal
Hope for Brazil’s Coast
Canavieiras, Brazil.
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Photo Credit: Enrico Marone
I
n Brazil, marine life finds shelter in strange
forests, full of plants that grow where others
cannot. The country is home to the third-largest
mangrove area in the world, where tree roots with
hundreds of tangled arms reach into seawater, crabs
tiptoe through mud, and oysters grow in colonies
before they’re plucked by people living along the coast.
Brazil’s mangrove area is as much an environmental
powerhouse as it is beautiful, providing habitat for
more than 750 species of wildlife and contributing
to climate change mitigation by sequestering large
amounts of carbon. Brazil’s mangrove forests are also
essential to the country’s coastal fishing: They serve
as feeding and nursery grounds for fish stocks, and
Brazil’s mangrove area in particular directly supports
50 percent of its local fisheries.
Over time, the balance among rich marine ecosystems
and healthy fisheries has been disrupted. Many of
Brazil’s coastal fisheries are now at risk, as a result of
overfishing and the steady destruction of mangroves
and other habitat. Though marine protected areas
(MPAs) exist with the aim of safeguarding both habitat
and the fish stocks it shelters, these areas see little
enforcement. Only 1.6 percent of Brazil’s Exclusive
Economic Zone is currently under any form of MPA
protection. Brazil’s largely open-access fisheries are
also often poorly managed. Today, 80 percent of
Brazil’s fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited,
depleted or recovering as a result of overfishing.
Brazilian coastal fishing cannot continue as it has, if
future generations of coastal people hope to depend
on fish for food and livelihood. The impact of coastal
fisheries collapse would hit Brazil hard: half of the
Brazilian population lives on the coast, and 60 percent
or more of total fish landings are from these fisheries.
To head into a more sustainable future in fishing,
Brazil will need to transform its fisheries management
and marine conservation strategies at local and
national levels.
This is where Rare finds its niche, at the cross-section
of sustainable fisheries management and committed
marine conservation. For Rare, sustainable fishing
involves managing fisheries with a system of rights
rather than open access. Rare helps coastal fishers
and their communities design and enact areas of
exclusive fishing access, giving them a way to organize
their use and prevent overfishing. These access areas
are also strategically mapped in or along MPAs,
giving local fishers the personal incentive to enforce
MPA protections — in exchange for healthy fish
stocks that may make their way through nearby
fishing grounds.
While providing information, guidance, and tools to
help communities enact rights-based management
for their fisheries, Rare works with leaders from
the community and local NGOs to build collective
support for the approach. Those leaders, called Rare
Pride campaign launch in Cururupu.
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Brazil will need to transform
its fisheries management and
marine conservation strategies
at local and national levels.
Fellows, run marketing campaigns that make the case
for rights-based fishing and inspire local pride for the
ocean resources the approach secures. From Rare
Brazil’s inception, Rare has received support in these
community mobilization efforts from Bloomberg
Philanthropies’ Vibrant Oceans initiative.
For Rare, the ultimate goal is bringing sustainable
fishing about on a national level. We’ve begun
collaborating with government stakeholders at that
level early on, including ICMBio, the environment
ministry’s agency responsible for creating, managing
and enforcing protected areas in Brazil. In Rare’s first
cluster of sites implementing the approach, we’re
working within Brazil’s RESEX system — a type of
marine protected area where sustainable use is
allowed — to put sustainable fishing in place.
It’s been two years since Rare’s Brazil team opened
their in-country office, registered Rare as a local
NGO, and got to work bringing sustainable fishing to
coastal communities. In that time, we’ve seen reasons
for optimism — glimpses of what the future of Brazilian
coastal fishing could look like. We see them in the
communities of Rare’s first six sites, in their involvement
in our early efforts, their celebration of local nature,
and their proactive dialogue about the changes they
can make both on and off the water.
Follow Rare’s progress making
sustainable fishing a reality in Brazil
In 2015, Rare selected its first six sites: Mar de Cururupu,
Delta do Parnaiba and Prainha do Canto Verde in the
north, Baía do Iguape and Canavieiras on the central
coast, and Pirajubaé in the south. Rare surveyed and
selected its first sites with a diversity of local habitat
types, biology, socioeconomics, politics, and other
factors in mind, with the aim of making its rightsbased fishing approach adaptable to communities’
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unique conditions. Biodiversity was also a big factor
in their selection — the Cururupu RESEX, for instance,
is home to the longest contiguous stretch of mangroves
in the world.
In March and April, each of the six sites launched
Pride campaigns for sustainable local fishing. Pride
campaigns, led by each site’s Rare Fellow, use Rare’s
signature marketing methodology to inspire local
pride for nature and channel new perspectives into
new behaviors — in this case, the new behaviors
being sustainable, managed fishing access and
enforcement of MPAs.
At each site, Fellows held launch events in partnership
with local groups, putting on community-wide activities
like puppet shows, parades, sports competitions,
public forums, workshops laying out Rare’s model for
community members, and speeches given by local
leaders on the need for changes to coastal fishing.
During the launches, the Brazil team found that
their drive to enable sustainable local fishing was
contagious: They saw high turnouts, with the
Canavieiras launch bringing dozens of boats to
shore with fishers from all over the region. They
saw community members celebrate their marine
resources and wildlife, as kids and adults danced
with costumed mascots modeling the areas’ prized
species, like oyster, clam, snapper and snook. In Baía
do Iguape, where oysters are a key species and are
harvested from mangroves primarily by women,
30 shellfish harvesters, or “marisqueiras,” donned
campaign shirts in support of Rare Brazil’s effort.
All of these local communities, who
have very little, are eager to change
things and want to see their fisheries
thriving in the long term.
- Marcia Cota
Rare Brazil Program Development Director
The Brazil team saw the community engage not
only in celebration, but also in candid conversation
about the problems surrounding their fisheries.
Pride campaign launch in Delta.
Take the Prainha do Canto Verde RESEX: designated
seven years ago along a strip of tourism hot spots,
the RESEX now faces pressure from the growing
real estate market and struggles with illegal fishing
within its boundaries. During the launch, Rare Fellow
Lindomar Fernandes opened up dialogue between
three officials from ICMBio and 15 local fishers on
new ways the community could enforce against
illegal fishing. Fishers suggested ways to improve
communication, including visits to neighboring
communities to clarify RESEX rules and boundaries,
as well as establishing a sea-to-land communication
system among themselves through inexpensive
mobile phones.
the Brazil team with their support and interest in
forthcoming events. “Rare’s work, each success, each
step is only possible due to these communities and
our partners — the government, local associations
and NGOs,” says Cota. We could never do this alone.”
Looking back at the community’s response to the start
of the Pride campaigns, Rare sees six communities
ready to give their fisheries a second chance.
“Throughout the events, I could see firsthand the Brazil
I love,” says Brazil Program Development Director
Marcia Cota. “All of these local communities, who
have very little, are eager to change things and want
to see their fisheries thriving in the long term.” At
times, their members even expressed their readiness
openly: After the Pirajubaé launch, a few respected
older fishers initially skeptical of the project approached
There will be challenges — after recent national political
and economic change, including the impeachment
of President Dilma Rousseff and restructuring of
government ministries, Rare will need to re-establish
communication channels with different wings of the
federal government. As Rare works through such
challenges, we focus on bright spots: the communities
that consistently demonstrate their capacity for change,
and the steadfast and open-minded partners that have
helped Rare get this far. 
As Rare Brazil moves forward facilitating community
adoption of managed access in these areas and
selecting its next cluster of sites, we’re looking ahead
at possibilities for widening our efforts. Rare will
extend its management reform efforts to other types
of protected areas in addition to RESEXs, as well as
outside of MPAs, as we work to make rights-based
fishing a solution replicated across the nation’s coast.
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Pride in the Valley
Seven Rare Fellows Drive Community-Powered
Conservation in Colombia
La Union watershed community.
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Photo Credit: Jason Houston
I
n Colombia’s Andean cloud forests, milky layers
of moisture hover atop the trees, like giant clumps
of cotton gently pulled apart and draped over
their leaves. These misty forests, where yelloweared parrots nest in hollow tree trunks, sloths
dangle from branches, and lichens and orchids drink
in the wet air, are a part of what makes the Andes one
of the most biologically diverse places in the world.
Ecosystems like cloud forests and páramo, another
form of vegetation found in the mountain region, are
also critically connected to the area’s water supply, on
which 35 million Colombian people rely. Cloud forests
and páramo collect and filter water upstream, and
stabilize its flow as it travels downstream. In contrast
to most forest habitats, these ecosystems are unique
in their ability to hold onto water and give it up slowly
and consistently throughout the seasons.
Valle del Cauca, or Cauca Valley, is home to hundreds
of towns along the West Andes that depend on
water sourced from these rich ecosystems. As in
In 2014, seven local men and women from regional
environmental authority Corporación Autonoma
Regional del Valle del Cauca (CVC) partnered with
Rare to help the people and nature of Valle del Cauca
change course. In the watersheds of Pance, Sonso,
La Paila, La Guinea-El Tanque, El Jordan-El Rincón,
Bitaco and Frayle, Rare Fellows Adriana Ramírez,
Edgar Largacha, Isabel Echeverri, Juan de Jesús
Salazar, Mónica Rivera, Ramiro Palma and Fernando
Parra have been working to empower people to
bring back their rich ecosystems and secure a clean,
consistent supply of fresh water.
In each of the seven watersheds, the Fellows ran
Pride campaigns to boost awareness about the
forest-water link among upstream farmers and
downstream water users, and mobilized them to
protect their natural resources without sacrificing
their livelihoods. To make the latter possible, the
Fellows built community support around reciprocal
water agreements, a method for sustainably
Rare fellows with their pride graduation certificates.
much of Colombia, Valle del Cauca communities and
their surrounding forests and rivers now face the
consequences of increasing land development. In the
valley, farmers have played a part in altering Andean
ecosystems over time, expanding their use of the
land by taking part in cattle ranching and clearing out
forests for agriculture. As large chunks of cloud forest
and páramo disappear, so too do the area’s distinct
means for collecting and regulating water. Healthy
páramo, for instance, stores up to 12 times more
water than grassland that has been disturbed by
cattle. With the ongoing challenges of climate change
and El Niño compounding the problem, Valle del
Cauca is feeling the weight of such pressures more
than ever before: In 2015, Valle del Cauca suffered the
lowest levels of downstream water flow in its history.
managing watersheds at the local level. Reciprocal
water agreements create a system of exchange
between communities of upstream landowners and
downstream water users: Downstream water users
donate to a locally managed fund that supplies
upstream landowners with benefits for sustainable
land use, such as coffee waste biodigestors and
barbed wire fencing to keep cattle out of stream
areas. In exchange, upstream landowners formally
commit to protecting and managing a designated
acreage of their land. Rare has worked to replicate
reciprocal water agreements to protect watersheds
throughout several South American countries.
Over two years, the seven campaigns directly reached
43,153 local residents and landed 32 reciprocal
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water agreements, securing signficant conservation
behavior adoption. The agreements protect a total
of 1,712 acres of forest in water recharge areas and
46.38 km of riparian vegetation along streams, and
place 538 acres under sustainable management
through methods like agro-forestry and restructured
farm production schemes. At the same time, Fellows
measured marked increases in local knowledge and
interpersonal communication about the forest-water
relationship and sustainable production alternatives,
as well as a willingness to adopt them.
In February, Rare and CVC brought the seven Rare
Fellows of Valle del Cauca together in a graduation
ceremony to celebrate the completion of their Pride
campaign and give them a space to collectively
reflect on their work. The Fellows made a few
important shared discoveries while working within
the Valle del Cauca communities: action demands
knowledge, real talk builds real trust, and changing
behaviors means changing hearts as much as minds.
Isabel Echeverri, Rare Fellow, La Paila.
In the Sonso micro-watershed, Edgar Largacha found
that some downstream community members had
yet to fully contemplate the link between diminishing
nearby forests and the water that reached their
homes. “You ask them, ‘Where does the water come
from?’” said Edgar. “They answer, ‘From the faucet.
Or from the supermarket, at the store.’ Some don’t
know the problem.” From such insights, Edgar knew
to go back to the basics, regularly emphasizing to the
community that the surrounding forests help regulate
the water they consume. “I gave this message to
the communities: Remember that the forest helps
preserve the water you need,” said Edgar. “It’s not
easy to adopt a change. This is a very meaningful
result, when you know, for example, that the forest
gives you life. And you know that the alternatives are
better practices to preserve the forest.”
Real Talk Builds Real Trust
To move watershed conservation forward as a
community, the people of each watershed needed to
be able to candidly express their ideas, confusion and
fears about changing existing production practices
and traditional dynamics with nature. Early in
the Pride campaigns, the Fellows set out to build
community support for watershed conservation
through trust and open dialogue. “I didn’t want
to present myself as an authority,” said Adriana
Ramírez, leader of the Pance sub-watershed Pride
campaign. “I wanted to be a collaborator, someone
that wants to work with you. We started to use
person-to-person methodology, because as a
professional or someone with technical knowledge,
it is different to approach people. Face to face, it is
easier to approach them.”
Research, then Rally
All seven Rare Fellows kicked off their campaigns
with comprehensive qualitative and quantitative
research. In addition to biological monitoring, the
Fellows conducted interviews, focus groups, and
other forms of study to get a deeper sense of what
upstream farmers, downstream water users, and
other key watershed stakeholders thought and felt
about the issues, as well as the possible pursuit of
sustainable alternatives. If the campaigns were to
inspire any changes in behavior toward local forests
and rivers, they needed to first see those same
forests and rivers from the point of view of their
target audiences.
Each Fellow’s early research findings became
invaluable in shaping effective campaign messaging.
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I didn’t want to present myself
as an authority. I wanted to be a
collaborator, someone that wants
to work with you.
- Adriana Ramírez
Rare Fellow, Pance
While engaging individual members of the community,
the Fellows held public events and workshops
bringing groups together on the subject of forest and
water conservation. Each Pride campaign helped the
communities form Management Committees, giving
members an outlet to talk to one another about how
to work together toward sustainability. This kind of
inter-audience communication is central to all Pride
campaigns. “They can dialogue with each other, so
the owners can get to know the users, so the owners
can get to know each other,” said Mónica Rivera, of the
El Jordan-El Rincón micro-watershed Pride campaign.
Soon, conversation cropped up from farm to farm.
“Neighbors started to speak to each other,” said
Edgar. “They were asking, ‘Hey, what do you do
with your garbage, or your solid residue?’ ‘I don’t
know, I burn them.’ ‘Oh, well me, I bury them or
turn them into a compost.’ ‘What do you do with
your cows?’ ‘Well, I have them here in this area and
I don’t let them wander around.’” By 2016, the local
buzz about watershed conservation was reflected
in Pride campaign data: Among upstream farmers,
interpersonal communication about the forest-water
relationship and sustainable production practices
increased from 35.3 percent to 83.6 percent.
A Matter of the Heart
Local pride — the concept that gives Rare’s signature
social marketing campaigns their name — became
the Fellows’ key outlet for snowballing that dialogue,
and elevating curiosity about forest and water
conservation to active support. The seven Valle del
Cauca Pride campaigns sought to inspire communities
- Edgar Largacha
Rare Fellow, Sonso
to take pride in the surrounding environment as their
own piece of the vast, green valley.
Rare’s social marketing campaigns are designed
around the belief that people make decisions using
their emotions as much as their reasoning. In Valle
del Cauca’s communities, emotion is king: some of
the best ways to reach people are through radio soap
operas, song and dance. The Pride campaigns tapped
into these outlets, holding parades with animal
mascots bopping through the streets — modeled
after the sloths, armadillos and birds at risk in nearby
upstream forests — and taking to the radio to tell
their stories. “The community is present,” said Juan
de Jesús Salazar of the La Guinea-El Tanque Pride
campaign. “The community is spectacular. There’s no
one that hasn’t heard of this campaign because of the
radio station, because of the activities. People come
and ask us, ‘Are you doing this?’”
Rounding out their two-year Pride campaigns with
promising results in hand, the seven Rare Fellows
of Valle del Cauca will continue working to secure
forest ecosystem protection and reciprocity between
upstream farmers and downstream water users, with
many in the process of finalizing more reciprocal
water agreements now. “This is only one page of our
lives,” said Mónica Rivera. “With this page, we can
secure better water quality for 35,000 families in the
Cauca Valley. It’s not good to write by yourself, not
when you’re discussing conservation. Let’s write this
story together.” 
I gave this message to the
communities: Remember that the
forest helps preserve the water
you need. It’s not easy to adopt a
change. This is a very meaningful
result, when you know, for example,
that the forest gives you life.
Mónica Rivera , Rare Fellow, El Rincon.
Photo Credit: Jason Houston
15
One Country’s Climate
Change Strategy May
Save Its Coasts
Mozambique Makes Sustainable Coastal Fishing Part of
its Plan to Combat Worsening Climate Change Effects
Machangulo, Mozambique.
16
W
ith 2,700 km of exposed and highly
vulnerable coastline along the Indian
Ocean, Mozambique seems forever fixed
at the edge of another major cyclone or tropical storm,
each proving disastrous for the coast and its people.
In 2000, the combined effect of Mozambique’s massive
cyclones and flooding resulted in the displacement of
more than 500,000 people. As new and more intense
climate change effects bear down on the already
vulnerable coast, Mozambicans face even more
frequent and stronger floods, cyclones and sea
level rise. At the same time, over 15 million coastal
Mozambicans, composing some of the poorest
communities in the world, have yet to find sufficient
means to protect themselves physically and socially
from the next big weather event. Pressure from
climate change is building on the coast and within its
communities. So how can Mozambique relieve it?
The country has a natural means to defend its coast
from climate change, sourced from its own shores
and waters: There’s proven potential for coastal
protection and climate resilience from coastal habitats,
including mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds,
all found throughout the coast. The richer these
ecosystems, the stronger they can act as buffers
against extreme weather that descends on the coast.
Restoring these ecosystems could boost ecological
resilience and cushion the blow of storm surge, erosion,
wave damage, and other events. In turn, it’s equally
important for coastal communities to develop social
resilience to climate change, which can evolve as
communities develop the self-governance and
organization needed to protect coastal marine
environments and manage their resources.
Mozambique’s national climate agenda, as laid
out in the National Climate Change Adaptation
and Mitigation Strategy (NCCAMS), will prioritize
boosting ecological and social resilience to climate
change both locally and nationally, by recovering
critical ecosystems and finding ways to make future
coastal development low-carbon. This year,
Mozambique’s National Institute for the Development
of Fisheries and Aquaculture (IDEPA) invited Rare to
become a part of those efforts, through our work in
sustainable coastal fishing.
Local fisher in Memba, Mozambique.
Photo Credit Michaela Clemence/UCSB
17
Coastal connections: How fishing
factors into Mozambique’s fight against
climate change
Coastal fishing is a massive sector in Mozambique,
one that composes 99 percent of local fishing jobs
and ties directly into the country’s resilience against
climate change. In part, the state of coastal fishing
goes hand in hand with the state of Mozambique’s
natural defenses against climate change: Unsustainable
fishing and overfishing in coastal waters degrades
habitats, threatens area biodiversity, and depletes
fish stocks. Today, 88 percent of fish stocks are fully
exploited or overexploited in Mozambique.
In every sustainable fishing program Rare carries out,
it’s essential to protect coastal habitats, the natural
resources they hold, and the people that depend on
them. So far, with our partners, we’ve made headway
in sustainable coastal fishing in Mozambique, Brazil,
Belize, Indonesia and the Philippines. We promote
conservation and sustainable use of marine ecosystems
through a formula that tackles the overfishing issues
common to open-access coastal fishing, and rethinks
fishery management.
The relationship between coastal
communities and their natural
resources must change, so that
they can continue to rely on the
ocean for their livelihoods, their
food security, and protection
against climate change.
In this formula, Rare pairs managed fishing access with
marine reserves, making sustainable use and marine
conservation part of a single solution. In managed
access areas, local fishers are granted exclusive
fishing rights. These zones are placed in or along
marine reserves, which protect the habitats where
fish stocks swim, breed, feed and live. Doing so
enables fishers to reduce pressure on their fisheries
and these habitats, while looking ahead at catching
more bountiful fish stocks, giving time and space for
fish to recover in nearby marine reserves.
18
Throughout implementation of managed access
and marine reserves, Rare is also exploring ways to
make the process of fishing itself more sustainable
for coastal communities, through efforts like climatefriendly cold storage technology. A key initiative
within our Mozambique program, this technology
relies on renewable energy, and will prototype a cold
storage method — super-chilled brine — that does
not rely on ice. This will bring cold storage and
reduced fishing waste to communities that don’t
currently have the opportunity, and can increase fish
product value without requiring fishers to catch more.
The richer these ecosystems,
the stronger they can act as
buffers against extreme weather
that descends on the coast.
In Mozambique, six local fishing extensionists from
the IDEPA are working with Rare to build community
knowledge and support around our sustainable
fishing approach. These leaders, called Rare Fellows,
communicate the ways the relationship between
coastal communities and their natural resources
must change, so that they can continue to rely on the
ocean for their livelihoods, their food security, and
protection against climate change. For the Fellows,
fundamental and pervasive behavior change among
communities is key to helping this relationship thrive,
rather than crumble to depleted fish stocks and
defenseless shores.
Rare Fellows Edmundo A.Q. Pinto, Anuar Amade,
Honório dos Santos, Inês Mahumane, Adelino
Silane and Isídro Intave are leading Pride campaigns
that bring coastal people together to discuss the
importance of the marine environment in their
own lives, and provide ways that they might make
positive changes to their interactions with the ocean
and its resources. Rare and IDEPA provide the tools,
guidance and technical support for communities
to design and adopt sustainable fishing through
managed access and marine reserves, zones which
they create and govern on their own terms.
For Rare, launching the Mozambique program with
the national government as our implementing partner
also presents a unique opportunity for national scale:
Early and direct collaboration with the government
primes the country to expand the concept along the
entire coast, making use of capacity that Rare will
help build during its time on the ground.
As more communities come together in dialogue,
make a fundamental switch in perspective — to seeing
the marine environment as something to safeguard
rather than solely use up — and act on that new
perspective through the adoption of managed access
and marine reserves, coastal ecosystems will have a
real chance to rebound. And as these communities
self-organize to run their own managed access areas,
they can channel their newly formed social cohesion
in all areas of coastal life, including collectively
responding to the challenges of climate change.
When its people and nature thrive, Mozambique can
be ready. 
Local women in Gimpia, Mozambique.
Photo Credit Michaela Clemence/UCSB
19
From the Coast to
the Capital, Pride
Goes National
As Rights-Based Fisheries Management Finds Its
Moment in Indonesia, the National Government’s
Ministries Teamed Up with Rare to Celebrate the
Start of a National Pride Campaign for Fish Forever
Local Pride celebration in Bumbang.
20
I
n Jakarta, Indonesia’s bustling capital in Java,
Rare partnered with the national government’s
ministries — called the Ministry of Marine
Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF) and the Ministry of
Environment and Forestry — in mid-February to
launch a national Pride campaign for Fish Forever.
The launch kicked off a dozen comprehensive marketing
campaigns in coastal sites across Indonesia. Their
aim: to build awareness and support for managed
access + marine reserves, and equip coastal
communities with a path to sustainable fishing.
Rare’s national Pride launch and the government
collaboration behind it comes at a turning point for
Indonesian fishing. This year, the country will define
how it regulates its small-scale fisheries, the nearshore waters where most Indonesian fishers make
their living. In the past, Indonesia’s waters have been
open-access, meaning any fisher can extract from
any fishing grounds. With a lack of ownership or
organization, however, comes pressure: When all
waters are fair game, fishers begin a race to catch, for
fear of losing out to the many others that can come
from anywhere to cover the same fishing grounds.
Now, the dialogue around managing fisheries
is changing. In the past two years, the national
government has publicly expressed support for the
once restricted notion of managing fisheries using rights.
This year, the government is formalizing its first
regulation outlining rights-based fisheries management
as it applies to Indonesia’s coast, giving communities
the legal right to make rights-based fishing a reality in
their nearby waters. The regulation will first apply to
fishing zones within 17 million hectares of Indonesian
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
The national government has
publically expressed support
for the once restricted notion of
managing fisheries using rights.
Rare has supported the Indonesian government in its
exploration of the alternative management approach
as a trusted thought partner. Now that the conversation
The sustainability and
conservation of MPAs will
not take place without the
participation of small-scale
fishers and the community
surrounding the area to
guard it.
– Slamet Soebjakto
MMAF Acting Director General
of Management of Marine Space
around fisheries has opened up to rights-based models,
Rare can move forward in its work to help communities
design, sanction and manage access areas developed
using the Fish Forever formula. In the Mayalibit Bay
MPA and the Karimunjawa National Park, this process
is well on its way: We’ve worked with communities
in these areas to finalize two designs for managed
access + marine reserves. From here, we’ll channel
the momentum to further build support for Fish
Forever in communities across Indonesia, as well as
at the national level.
For Rare, the national Pride launch was an important
mark of trust and collaboration needed to mobilize
positive fisheries change nationally, as Indonesia’s
fisheries and environment ministries co-hosted the
event. There, government and fisher organization
leaders joined Rare Indonesia Vice President Taufiq
Alimi in a roundtable discussion about the future of
the country’s small-scale fisheries. Agus Dermawan,
Secretary for Directorate General of Marine Spatial
Management of the Ministry of Marine Affairs and
Fisheries, Agus Budi Santoso, Secretariat General of
Natural Resources Conservation and its Ecosystems
of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and Riza
Damanik, Chairman of the Indonesian Traditional
Fisherfolk Union, spoke of the need to elevate fishers
and their communities to become active players in
sustainable fisheries management.
For these leaders, it’s also critical to factor the
country’s bold conservation goals into regulation
of small-scale fishing, particularly enforcement of
Indonesia’s MPAs. In 2009, Indonesia committed to
21
Mascot dances in Wakatobi Pride celebration.
reaching a target of 20 million hectares of effectively
managed MPAs by 2020. Conservation through
marine reserves is an integral part of the Fish Forever
solution, which strategically places managed access
areas in or along existing MPAs to work with their
recovery objectives. The combination promotes
an exchange of benefits that can motivate fishers
to become more involved in protecting the marine
environment: Fishers with exclusive access to a
certain area can be better incentivized to enforce
nearby MPA protections when there’s an opportunity
to later catch the fish that could spill over from that
MPA’s waters. “The sustainability and conservation of
MPAs will not take place without the participation of
small-scale fishers, and the community surrounding
the area to guard it,” said a senior MMAF official at
the launch. “Through the course of a Fish Forever
Pride campaign, we want to make MPAs directly
useful for small-scale fishers.”
22
Ultimately, Fish Forever places the fate of its
management solution in the hands of those who will
live and fish by its rules. In the weeks that followed
the national Pride launch, Rare Fellows leading the
12 campaigns hosted local launches that brought Fish
Forever’s message to each community. With each
launch came parades through the streets featuring
bright, big-eyed marine animal mascots, outdoor
games, traditional dance performances, and shared
meals topped off with fish-shaped cakes. As the
celebrations took over streets and fields, Rare Fellows
invited fishers to upcoming meetings to collectively
discuss the approach, think about what it should
look like in their community, and voice their thoughts
and concerns about its design. As Pride campaigns
organize communities around new management
areas that they can shape together, Rare Fellows
will look to their members to question, learn about,
embrace and drive sustainable, rights-based fishing. 
financials
23
Financials
36%
Individuals
43%
FY2016
Revenue
by source
Foundations & corporations
17%
Governments & multilaterals
04%
Other revenue
$19.5m
84%
Program services
FY2016
Expenses
09%
Administrative
07%
Fundraising
$24.1m
24
leadership
& trustees
25
Rare Leadership
(as of September 2016)
Brett Jenks
President and CEO
Taufiq Alimi
Vice President, Indonesia
Anna Bartlett
Chief of Staff
Carl Davis
Vice President, Individual Giving
Dale Galvin
Managing Director, Sustainable Markets and Finance
Kerri Hannigan
Vice President, Marketing and Communications
Martha Piper
Managing Director, Global Solutions
Patrick Mehlman, Ph.D.
Vice President, Mozambique
Tim Childress
Chief Financial Officer
Gerald Miles
Vice President, Global Development
Karen Ziffer
Chief Development Officer
Peggy Tayloe
Vice President, Talent
Keith Alger, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Water and Brazil Programs
Rocky Tirona
Vice President, Phillipines
Paul John Butler
Senior Vice President
Rare Trustees
(as of September 2016)
officers
Scott M. Amero
Chairman
Former Vice Chairman and Global Chief Investment Officer,
Fixed Income of BlackRock
Nancy Mackinnon
Vice-Chair
Former Vice President, The Nature Conservancy
Lois Morrison
Secretary
Executive Director, Harold M. and Adeline S. Morrison
Family Foundation
Duncan M. McFarland
Treasurer
The Bromley Charitable Trust
Sven Linblad
CEO, Linblad Expeditions
Vadim Nikitine
Founder, Owner, and President, Commercial Centers Management
Thomas A. Patterson
Partner, Madrone Capital
Jose Roberto Marinho
President, Roberto Marinho Foundation
Board Member, Grupo Globo
Amanda Paulson
Christian Science Monitor
Jan Portman
Trustee, The Nature Conservancy of Montana
trustees
Anne Martin Simonds
Consultant, Spencer Stuart
Paul John Butler
Senior Vice President, Rare
honorary trustees
Dorothy Batten
President of the D. N. Batten Foundation
Joseph H. Ellis
Board Member, The Wilderness Society and National Audubon
Society
Steve Gaines
Dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science and
Management at UCSB
Barbara Hernandez
President and Co-Founder of Niños y Crías
Scott Jacobs
CEO and Co-Founder of Generate Capital
26
Brett Jenks
President and CEO, Rare
Wendy Paulson
Chair Emerita
Kenneth Berlin, Esq.
President and CEO, Climate Reality Project
David O. Hill
Federal Express Corporation
Robert S. Ridgely, Ph.D.
American Bird Conservancy
Ruth Yeoh
Executive Director, YTL Singapore Pte Ltd
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