Communities and Livelihoods
With at least half a million people living inside the Leuser Ecosystem and around 7.5 million more benefiting from its ecological services, it is abundantly clear that conservation solutions need to include humans and nature alike. The forests sustain villages, nearby towns and faraway cities via a host of ecological services. But the short-term benefits of forest conversion often speak more loudly to individual households, whose priority is to put food on the table and send their children to school. LEAF invests in a range of work to create forest-friendly jobs, and to give communities – including women and young people – more opportunities to protect their local forests.