CREE is a livelihoods focused non-profit organization that seeks practical solutions to bridging the gap between sustainable development and environmental conservation. We achieve this through programs that focus on poverty alleviation and resolving human-wildlife conflict.  We prioritize community needs and our results are powerful and culturally appropriate.  We believe a ‘green’ solution to poverty exists and is necessary for long-term sustainable development. By keeping a focused project portfolio organized around poverty-environment interactions, CREE ensures high success rates in its specific niche within the field of conservation.  We never impose ideas from the outside; all our projects are 100% locally conceived and led. Through our people-centered conservation model we create a nucleus of village led change from within.

CREE is unique because of its sole focus on poverty, making it a leader in the environmental field in addressing problems traditionally tackled by humanitarian organizations.  Since its inception in 2007, CREE has worked on projects in Guyana, Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.  Projects are diverse in scope and include livelihoods generation, eco-tourism, improved agricultural techniques, climate change adaptation, ecosystem resiliency and human-wildlife conflict minimization. What all projects have in common are results that have a tangible impact on poverty locally.  Being a grassroots organization, we look to change peoples lives for the better at the village level long-term.  Our principle goal is to channel human and financial resources from industrialized economies directly into the hands of capable conservation leaders from the developing world. This gives them the ability to design, direct, and ultimately evolve their conservation projects for the benefit of local livelihoods in ways they see fit, given the socio-economic realities surrounding them.

Community led climate change adaptation

In a climate change era, CREE believes that its existing core work of gender empowerment, creating alternative income strategies, protecting ecosystem services and fostering new agricultural practices lay the foundation for practical climate change adaptation measures in villages most vulnerable to climatic variability. Our goal is create ‘Climate Ready Communities’ led by community leaders and based on solid local institutions that enable creative solutions to buffer against the most adverse impacts of climatic variability in ecological systems people are dependent upon. Recognizing watershed services and other benefits that flow from a healthy environment, we are already promoting new technological changes and working with under-represented groups in communities to counter future ecological challenges with positive change and grassroots ingenuity. Building upon our initial success, local people will have the capacity to make informed decisions about their futures in an ever-changing environment. CREE seeks to protect and enhance ecosystem services at project sites whenever possible, as they form the basis of natural capital and the foundation for community welfare, creating a buffer against poverty resultant from climate variability.

CREE is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.

“One of the anomalies of modern ecology is that it is the creation of two groups, each of which seems barely aware of the existence of the other. The one studies the human community almost as if it were a separate community, and calls its findings sociology, economics, and history. The other studies the plant and animal community and comfortably relegates the hodge-podge of politics to the liberal arts. The inevitable fusion of the two lines of thought will, perhaps, constitute the outstanding advance of the present century.”

-Aldo Leopold, 1935