Migration and Conservation: A toolkit for conservation and development practitioners

Integrating existing and potential migration concerns into conservation interventions is increasingly important in many parts of the world.

Many critical ecosystems are already experiencing myriad forms of natural resource and climate stress, and the growing socio-environmental impacts of migration could exacerbate or reinforce existing social tensions and institutional failures, further threatening the critical ecosystems and the livelihoods they support. Policy-makers and practitioners are not fully aware of these threats, nor are they fully prepared to manage them through appropriate interventions.

The Migration and Conservation Toolkit was developed to help conservation practitioners assess the impacts of human migration on critical ecosystems. It draws on extensive research in three critical ecosystems in the Great Lakes region of Africa with generous funding from the MacArthur Foundation.

The toolkit is intended as a roadmap to guide users toward a better understanding of migration dynamics and impacts, an understanding they can then use to better protect ecosystems. It is not prescriptive, but instead aims to help practitioners design and implement activities that are sensitive to the dynamics and impacts of existing and potential human migration on livelihoods and natural resource use, and that address the consequent impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity in host communities.