OUR APPROACH

^{To safeguard biodiversity, we believe that local communities and other stakeholders should be empowered to create their own sustainable future, grounded in authentic ecological and cultural values. We are supportive of change and development for local communities when these strive to reach an inclusive sustainable future both for communities and the ecosystems they are part of. Therefore, we support organisations which help communities and other stakeholders to express their needs, formulate their vision and develop an approach to implement their plan. Often, these organisations also work on improving the cooperation between local communities and public authorities.}

^{We believe that supporting successful community-led solutions can leverage the impact of local models to tackle global challenges that can seem daunting at first, such as the impact of climate change or habitat loss. We treasure small-scale projects that can set an inspirational example and can potentially be scaled up or replicated to a larger region.}

exchange between seed-, seedling and mother tree projects

^{The Otter Fonds prioritizes collaborations with small-scale organisations but considers partnerships with medium scale organisations when their goal is to exchange knowledge and to share best practices with smaller organisations. This approach allows the mature organisations, the ‘mother trees’, to support and guide starting ‘seed’-, and growing ‘seedling’ organisations and make sure they do not have to reinvent the wheel all by themselves.}

^{At the same time, the seed and seedling projects can provide a wealth of knowledge, innovation and fresh ideas from the field that is valuable for the mother tree organisations.}