The Kesho Trust is a Canadian charitable organization supporting local communities to understand the conservation values of the environment in which they live and help them implement development interventions that are compatible with and build on those natural resource values. We also assist protected areas management agencies to work with local communities in the cooperative achievement of both protected areas and community objectives.

The Kesho Trust aims to support practical solutions to conservation problems through the strengthening of protected area management and community based development that is compatible with conservation. We strive to foster all four elements of what is often termed the conservation quartet: research to understand the problem, education to explain it, community involvement to ensure participation and acceptance, and implementation of a solution. It is through enabling communities to gain a greater understanding of, appreciation for, and implementation of community conservation practices that the integrity of protected areas and other natural environments will be sustained.

The Kesho Trust focuses its efforts on three specific project acitvities:

• Community-based Conservation: to improve conservation for areas surrounding a protected area, implementing new and expanded approaches for habitat protection and management
• Economic Development: to develop improved livelihoods in local communities based on conservation
• Conservation Education: to strengthen public awareness and knowledge of the value of conservation within the local communities and beyond

Visit The Kesho Trust website.