Building Sustainable Community Partnerships

Eco-livelihoods Ltd is a UK based environmental services company with experience in the creation of rural livelihoods and sustainability issues in post-conflict and resource starved environments in Africa. We provide support to corporate Community Engagement and Development (CED) initiatives in developing countries.

 We work with our clients in areas such as livelihoods restoration through improved food security, agricultural intensification and improved resource utilisation; natural resource management and sustainability activities both on site and in the habitat surrounding operational sites and in rehabilitation and closure strategies that bring maximum benefit to neighbouring communities.

Our work has been with the mining sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and South Africa. We work with our clients and stakeholders to find solutions to the drivers of environmental degradation such as poverty and hunger.

Our clients often operate in remote areas characterised by high levels of poverty and underdevelopment and high levels of bio-diversity and threatened eco-systems.

We specialise in working in fractured communities in post conflict societies and rebuilding human and other capital,

We draw on our proven ability to align community development with overall policies and objectives of government's and other stakeholders in these challenging circumstances.

Livelihoods Restoration 
Eco-livelihoods works with fractured communities in post-conflict and resource-poor communities, rebuilding human and other capital drawing on our proven ability to align community development with overall policies and objectives of our clients, government and other stakeholders in challenging circumstances. We use tried and tested agricultural intensification strategies to improve yields, food security and transform livelihoods. We have a strong emphasis on the extension of techniques and community mobilisation around improved agricultural practices and sustainability. We address issues such as the impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture in areas such as gender, labour supply and health. We also develop responses to resource shortages such as water shortages, high costs of agricultural inputs and to environmental degradation in neighbouring communities. Our work includes building micro industries that produce honey, fish, poultry and vegetables to sell to the developers and nurseries that produce trees and vetiver grass for rehabilitation work.



Community Engagement
Community Engagement and Development support brings expert consultant input to the analysis of farming systems currently employed by communities living in or at the edge of forest areas surrounding the mining site and a knowledge transfer to locally recruited and trained staff and farmers. Our interventions aim to conserve, improve and make more efficient use of natural resources through integrated management of available soil, water and biological resources combined with external inputs. Our programme contributes to environmental conservation as well as to enhanced and sustained agricultural production and can also be referred to as resource-efficient / resource effective agriculture. The proposed interventions can contribute towards initiatives to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS in local communities by improving smallholder agricultural production and nutrition such as extension support with labour saving technologies, vegetable gardens using drip irrigation and improved and directed application of chemical and organic inputs. These interventions address key challenges related to labour and skills loss. The programme also focuses on water conservation as a response to the challenges facing local communities with shrinking water resources. 
CBNRM
Eco-livelihoods specialises in Community Based Resource Management (CBNRM) of indigenous forest ecosystems including inventories, land use planning and zoning, enrichment planting, reforestation and fire management. Our experienced foresters, forest managers, agronomists and other scientific partners develop and manage biodiversity conservation plans for standing indigenous forest habitats. We have experience in the rehabilitation and restoration of indigenous forest landscapes. This includes seed collection of indigenous species, germination and care of seedlings, transport and planting of trees back into degraded landscapes. We work in the rehabilitation of forest habitats degraded by commercial logging, mining activity, subsistence agriculture, unsustainable charcoal production and other human activity. This includes rehabilitation of riparian environments and eroded landscapes using a combination of replanting of trees and other grasses and shrubs.

Our photos

Our Team

During  20 years of work in various African countries, we have developed an emphasis on working with clients and partners who do business in complex, diverse and sensitive environments and concerned about sustainability issues. Work in the reconstruction of communities and eco-systems in post-conflict societies is central to our programme. Our expertise includes comprehensive environmental impact studies, option scoping for sustainable livelihoods, solution implementation and on-going management support of social-forestry and forest based development projects. 

Eco-livelihoods draws on a core group of experienced project managers and is complemented by a wide network of consultant social scientists, foresters, community liaison experts etc. positioned across Africa. We work with clients to deliver a holistic management of natural resources and “joined up” community engagement. The company is well positioned to undertake studies and evaluations, impact assessments, scoping exercises and design and implementation of solutions in modular or holistic manner dependant on the client’s needs. Our team works closely with stakeholders to ensure that objectives remain sharply focused and deliver quantifiable and verified outcomes.