Tellus Conservation brings funding for Ukraine’s rangers to the ground

With a flagship project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the nature-based project developer Tellus Conservation is helping to restore a 2,900 square meter protected area in the west, the UK-based company has also established a comprehensive support project in Ukraine: the Nature Fund of Ukraine. Co-founder Jody Bragger gives an insight into how this philanthropic work supports rangers and conservation as well as into the contribution European rangers could make.

Could you briefly tell us about your background and why you decided to found Tellus Conservation?

Both founders, Angus Aitken and I, were army officers, I with a postgraduate degree in biodiversity conservation from Oxford, plus experience in project management and training, to set up Tellus Conservation, while Angus led a new British Army contribution to the fight against poaching. In recent years he has deployed British soldiers to train rangers in sub-Saharan Africa, in countries such as Zimbabwe and Malawi. We set up Tellus Conservation to overcome the complex geographical and governance issues that hinder investment in conservation projects and to try to mobilise funding from the private sector. We founded the company to develop nature-based solution projects for market-based instruments.

How did your support for Ukrainian rangers come about?

Like many people in Europe at the time when Russia illegally invaded the country, many donors and funders within our network were very keen to support Ukraine in the environmental field. We soon found out that the national park network was unfunded. The Ukrainian economy had collapsed by 42 per cent, spending on the military, which was supposed to ensure the country’s survival, had increased enormously, and the government had to re-roll finances elsewhere. 

In which ways do you support protected areas and rangers?

We travelled to the country and visited ten national parks with Nastia Drapaliuk, who has over 20 years of experience in managing protected areas in Ukraine and is now the local project director of Nature Fund of Ukraine, an NGO that we have set up in the country. She took us to the parks that she felt had the right management and the right team to deal with aid. So we raised over 1.1 million US dollars to cover urgent ecological operating costs in the protected areas.

We support Ukrainian protected areas with everything from paying for fuel to replacing all government national park vehicles handed over to the army, repairing damaged buildings and introducing Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) training for all rangers.

Jody Bragger, co-founder of Tellus Conservation, UK

For two years, we supported the ten national parks and one reserve with everything from paying for fuel to replacing all government national park vehicles handed over to the army, repairing damaged buildings and introducing Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) training for all rangers. In collaboration with the Frankfurt Zoological Society, we have developed a standardised training package for all reserves and have also replaced a lot of ecological equipment needed for the work. This support project only works because the salaries of the park staff continue to be funded. This gave us the opportunity to utilise the fantastic local expertise of the park administration and enable the rangers to continue doing their job.

YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT UKRAINIAN RANGERS?

Please don’t hesitate to contact the
Nature Fund of Ukraine via Tellus Conservation:
jody@tellusconservation.com 

How could European rangers help fellow rangers in Ukraine from your point of view?

The Ukranian park staff are European rangers, that’s what they identify with: as part of Europe. So I call on everyone who is involved in the European ranger network to get in touch with the Nature Fund of Ukraine through us, a local NGO that we have set up with a local office.

I call on everyone who is involved in the European ranger network to get in touch to work together on anything from training to fundraising to building partnerships. Ukrainians don’t want to be isolated in the war, so we should all reach out to see how we can support them.

Jody Bragger, co-founder of Tellus Conservation, UK

That way we can see how we can work together, and this doesn’t necessarily have to be financial support. It can be anything from training to fundraising to building partnerships between parks in Ukraine and in Europe. Ukrainians don’t want to be isolated in the war, so we should all reach out to see how we can support them.