“We do not need to wait for governments or large organizations, we can contribute ourselves in time, money, knowledge, and ideas to protect our biodiversity.”

About Markus Faschina

Faschina is a business engineer with a specialisation in development policies. In the past 15 years he has worked with international financial institutions on development project analysis and funding, in particular in African countries. Aside from this he loves nature and thinks it’s important to protect it for future generations. Faschina is co-founder of Ecofund and in charge of its strategy and management.

About Ecofund

Ecofund was officially launched on July 2nd 2011. However Faschina and the other Ecofund team members have been working on this concept since 2006 and in 2009 the development of the web platform started. “We seek to boost small scale initiatives that can have a positive impact on local and global ecosystems. Our vision is a global community of green, local Champions that act as agents within their communities and protect our biodiversity. Within Ecofund a Champion is the local project owner whom initiated and manages the project. The long term vision is for Ecofund to use the internet and social media as a platform to discuss green ideas and ecosystems. A global free network where people with local initiatives can interact with one another to form a community, like Wikipedia or Facebook, where they act for a green future.”
Ecofund has 2 pillars:

1. It gathers money for small initiatives which otherwise do not have access to financing.
2. Second is the ecoblog, where people are invited to exchange knowledge about projects in foreign places, where people can be inspired about our biodiversity and informed about environmental challenges.

Every Champion who proposes ecoprojects to be funded, needs to bring along an ecopartner. This person or organisation supports and guards the project, usually this is a recognized person or organisation within a community or field. This sees to it that people trust that their contribution is being spent properly. For example an ecoproject which is being funded in Senegal is called the Casamance Ecoparc. The local Champion there is called Augustin Diatta, who is the owner of a tourist camp in Casamance. His purpose is to preserve the forest as this benefits tourism and the local economy. The ecopartner is Oceanium, which is led by Haïder El Ali who is one of the most prominent ecological figures in West Africa. Because of the ecopartner the project gains more credibility.

Global nomads, we believe in diversity

The Ecofund team is like a group of nomads. The founders have known each other for many years. They met in Senegal, where Faschina lives currently. “We met the other team members during our work. For example the person in charge of marketing we met in Dakar, she was working for a multinational manufacturing  cosmetics in New York and was on leave in the African city. When you drive around Senegal you can see the damage that has been done to the local ecosystems. This is unfortunate but we can definitely do something to improve it and that’s what we strive for with Ecofund. This is also how she was inspired to join Ecofund. The idea that you can be active and revive our ecosystem is very empowering to all of us.” Each team member has a similar story on how they became part of Ecofund. They work voluntarily for this cause. The team of global nomads is spread around Europe, Morocco, Senegal, and Tanzania. It’s very multicultural.

A network based on confidence

“We started a cooperation with Terre Vivante which is an editor on ecological books and with Wildlife Photographers Hellio and Van Ingen. We will soon start to make a series of articles on West African ecology. The idea of building bridges between people and projects across the globe is to create a network of learning about our ecosystem. We don’t want to pressure anyone, we also don’t want to create a doomsday scenario, and the idea is not to create yet another NGO, but we want people to interact on the issue in a guilt free, natural manner. The internet and Facebook for example are means, which allow people to interact when and wherever they want. The success of Ecofund is of course based on the quality of the project but it is also based on confidence from within the network. If I support a project and ask my family and friends to do the same, then the success is often bigger and word about the project will spread faster than if we wait for people to join by themselves.
Ecofund has the following believes:

1. Climate change conferences and government laws are important, but we need green, local Champions to implement them.
2. Everyone can be a Champion. In Europe people can choose to donate €5 to the ecosystem instead of buying McDonald’s for example. Active contribution sees to active citizens. We do not need to wait for governments or large organizations, we can contribute ourselves in time, money, knowledge, and ideas to protect our fragile biodiversity. The idea is based on peer-to-peer communication.
3. Ecofund  believes it is more efficient and sustainable to preserve our ecosystem through small locally motivated actions than once the ecosystem is damaged, to restore it through expensive tax payers funded programs.

George Clooney and the effect he has by driving a hybrid car

How can Europeans play a role in the success of Ecofund? “We see a double role for European citizens. We think that the interdependencies should be recognized globally. What happens in Mauritania to the National Park’s ecosystem will have an effect on the birds in Madrid, Paris or Berlin, as this affects their migration patterns. If you want to see birds in Europe then you need to see to it that they have somewhere to go to in the winter. It’s that simple, but it takes all of us to value and protect ecosystems and to recognize that everyone and everything is interconnected. Second is that we want a positive attitude within our network. The lifestyle in Europe, in particular the urban culture, influences behaviour in development countries. When George Clooney started driving a hybrid car, suddenly this became cooler than driving a Hummer or Porsche. So it’s important that people in Europe realise the effect of their behaviour on the behaviour of young people in developing countries. Also, European cities can initiate or define eco, urban initiatives in their own neighbourhood. This can be posted on the Ecofund website. This way people in Europe and in Senegal and Mauritania can learn from each other, they can work and partner up with each other, disseminating knowledge about ecological issues transatlantically.”

What is the goal of Ecofund? Where do you hope Ecofund will be in 5 years from now?

“First of all, our goal is to contribute to the protection of our ecosystems. Second, we want to do this in a concrete and tangible manner. Our Ecofund is not based on the quantity of projects, we do not want to set goals to aid 10 projects within a year for example. We much rather work on the quality of our projects. Choosing projects which really need it, which cannot get financing or micro financing in another way and for which we can show the results and the impact in an inspiring manner so we motivate more people to join actively in this cause. Third, we would like to build a meaningful, cultural exchange by means of a dialogue about our global biodiversity. We do this with our ecoblog, where we bring likeminded people together. Last, we would really like Ecofund to become a real green global platform and network, where everyone can contribute and join.  

EUKN, Elizabeth Winkel