Institutional Canopy of Conservation
Science & Indigenous Knowledge
OVERVIEW
The I-CAN program is a research project led by the African Conservation Centre (ACC) and McGill University. This 7 year, $2.5M (CAD) project, implemented between August 2014 and July 2021, addresses the challenge of combining protection of biodiversity with strengthened livelihoods. The program partnership involves a rich network of collaborators and partners from universities, research institutions and non-governmental organizations in Canada, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, the U.S., The Netherlands and Germany.
An Interview with I-CAN's Principal Investigators
ACC Founder, David Western, and McGill University Anthropology Professor, John G. Galaty, discuss the I-CAN program, its importance and potential impacts in this interview conducted at IDRC, Ottawa, Canada, in October 2014. [French subtitles]
RESEARCH GOALS & APPROACH
The major goal of the program is to identify the most effective designs for future community-based conservation programs. Research is focused on the rangelands, wetlands and forests of the East African savannah, especially in the borderlands between Kenya and Tanzania where the world’s greatest concentration of biodiversity and its most significant repository of wildlife lies. The program studies the impact of a range of conservancy experiments on local livelihoods, attitudes, and natural resource practices, with the aim to identify community-based conservation programs that can help conserve East Africa’s rich biodiversity and strengthen local livelihoods though improving access rights to natural resources, income diversification, and green economic development.
Funders & Partners
I-CAN is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the International Development Research Centre of Canada as part of their International Partnerships for Sustainable Societies (IPaSS) program — a joint initiative of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the International Development Research Center (IDRC).
