Asking someone to stop cultivating a wetland without offering anything in its place is not conservation. It is a cost transfer to the poorest party in the transaction, and it does not last.
The arithmetic from the household's side
A wetland margin plot is productive, close to home, and holds moisture into the dry season. Giving up three metres of it is a real loss to a household living close to the margin, and the fact that the loss is small in absolute terms does not make it small to them.
So every buffer agreement we make includes something in return. Usually seedlings for the household's own land. Sometimes training and startup equipment for beekeeping. Occasionally paid work in a nursery. What it is matters less than that it exists and that we deliver it on time.
What we offer
Beekeeping
Hives, training and help finding a buyer. Works particularly well next to a restored buffer, because the vegetation we are protecting is also forage.
Tree nurseries
A group raises seedlings, we guarantee a purchase, and they keep the surplus to sell. Turns restoration spending into local income.
Improved dryland plots
Better technique on the land away from the water, so the household is not simply told to farm less.
Fruit trees for the homestead
The simplest exchange, and often the most valued. Direct return, visible within a couple of seasons.
This is the part that is hardest to fund
Donors fund trees readily. Funding a beehive, so that a household can afford to leave a buffer strip alone, is a harder sell and does more for the river. Unrestricted giving is what pays for this.
Give unrestricted if you can
Restricted gifts are honoured and welcome. Unrestricted money is what lets us put a beehive next to a buffer strip in the month the household actually needs it.