“All through Papua New Guinea, in every province, there is logging and mining, but we are the first conservation area,” says Lisa Dabek in this week’s podcast.

Dabek is the director of the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Project (TKCP), an effort of the Seattle Woodland Park Zoo that works to protect tree kangaroos while empowering communities in Papua New Guinea’s YUS Conservation Area to manage their natural resources, health care, and food security.

“It is the people of YUS’s job to preserve the environment for their grandchildren,” she says. But “because these are such remote communities, they are not getting the services they’re supposed to get from the provincial government.”

TKCP began a process of outreach to help meet existing needs for better food security and health care, including reproductive and child health. The two-way engagement between communities and the conservation effort was important for its success. “From the very beginning we’ve talked about each clan setting aside a portion of their hunting land, so that we were not going in and telling them to stop hunting, but we were saying there’s a need for creating a sustainable natural resource for them, for food and for cultural aspects,” Dabek said.

“It’s been very fascinating for all of us to have these discussions in the communities,” she continued, “because you can talk about how you need healthy water, you need enough wildlife in the forest to be able to hunt to feed your family – all of these links that sometimes don’t get talked about in conservation projects.”

Dabek spoke at the Wilson Center on May 30.

Friday podcasts are also available for download from iTunes.