Craig Pollard [00:00:03]:
Welcome back to the Fundraising Radicals podcast. I'm your host, Craig Pollard. Today's conversation is with the ever modest Cosmas Makamet, the manager of FORCERT, a sustainable forestry nonprofit operating in Papua New Guinea. FORCERT is owned by the indigenous communities of PNG and they have built trusted partnerships that are critical to protecting land rights in the face of logging and palm oil companies. Their work within these communities is critical to sustaining the forests and biodiversity of Papua New Guinea, which is in turn critical for the future of the whole planet. I've been working with Cosmas and FORCERT for the past few years to help them build a sustainable fundraising model that includes global institutions, international partnerships, local trusts and companies, and a social enterprise arm so that their work can continue. I know you'll enjoy meeting Cosmas today and will be inspired hearing about the work of FORCERT.
Craig Pollard [00:01:03]:
So, Cosmas, welcome to the Fundraising Radicals podcast.
Cosmas Makamet [00:01:08]:
Thank you. I'm excited to be part of this and looking forward to the interview and discussions today.
Craig Pollard [00:01:17]:
So it's wonderful to see you. I guess it would probably help to introduce a bit of context. We've been working together we were working together for nearly two years, year and a half, two years, to help you build your fundraising capacity in Papua New Guinea. So it'd be great to hear about you, about FORCERTt, about your work and some of your sort of fundraising opportunities and challenges.
Cosmas Makamet [00:01:43]:
Thank you. So first I will introduce myself that I am Cosmas Makamet and I am from Papua New Guinea and I'm the manager of FORCERT. And I am based in Kimbe on the island of New Britain. And I've been with the organisation with FORCERT for more than ten years.
Craig Pollard [00:02:02]:
And tell me about FORCERT. FORCERT is a sustainable forestry organisation that's the heart of your work. Tell me about your work and what you do across Papua New Guinea.
Cosmas Makamet [00:02:14]:
Okay. FORCERT. My organisation, FORCERT, stands for Forest for Certain, Forest for Life, which means that with our forest, we have a life, we have a future, and we depend upon the forest, and we have to give it our best to keep it in a state where we can use it for ourselves and for future generations. So FORCERT is a non government organisation that has been working with communities, more than 20,000 people. And now we have gone up to about 30 communities in five different provinces of Papua New Guinea. And they work on their own land and in their communities. And in Papua New Guinea, the land owning system, the tenure ship system, is that the traditional landowners are the owners of the land and not the state. So that makes it quite different from other parts of the world where they make decisions on how they want to use their land and whether they want to sign up the land with a logging company or with a big palm oil company or whatever.
Cosmas Makamet [00:03:19]:
And so our work is facilitating processes in which they will make that decision for themselves and for the future. So with the current happenings in the country where the big large scale logging and other development companies, they would like to take the land. And if take this customary land, and if they are not advised and are able to make that decision, they will sign away the land and then they will not be able to sustain their livelihood. So in many cases, they lose their land to these development companies.
Craig Pollard [00:03:55]:
And these are remote indigenous communities that you're working with a lot of the time, who it takes days to travel to them and it takes years to build that trust because they have had many sort of promises or their contact is limited as well. So a big part of your work is building trust with these communities to guide them and help them to manage the resources that they are responsible for, that they have ownership for in terms of the land and the forests.
Cosmas Makamet [00:04:30]:
So these communities are very remote and takes like three different modes of travel, maybe by air, and then you get on a boat, and then by car, or by car, and then by boat, then you have to walk on food. So even if they are very close, sometimes you have to take four to 5 hours up the mountain and into the village. So these communities are very remote in trying to reach them. And our offices take a lot of time to get to them. And so that some of the challenges that is in our work, where they have to make this travel to these communities and the facilities there, government facilities are not always existent, so there are not many services available there. Maybe health services, maybe schools, yes, but they are not resourced. So these communities are very remote and the government services don't care for them. And what FORCERT does is like doing part of what the government is supposed to do, FORCERT does.
Cosmas Makamet [00:05:25]:
So in that sense, many of the communities come to FORCERT not only for protecting the environment, but for the services as well, for other services like health and education and all that. So it is like FORCERT, when we get the request from these communities, they are like getting a government service or something that they are looking forward to. So that is part of our work.
Craig Pollard [00:05:48]:
It's incredibly important, but I think that the amount of time that it takes as well is huge. And you're now working with 30 communities across five provinces, which is extraordinary because this is internationally relevant work, right. The biodiversity of Papua New Guinea, the importance of the sort of custodianship and supporting the custodians of these natural resources is so important internationally as well. And PNG, I think, probably has quite a lot of international attention in that sense. So do you find that donors are particularly interested in Papua New Guinea to help support your work? Are there opportunities there? And what are some of the challenges you come across in terms of funding?
Cosmas Makamet [00:06:35]:
Sorry, first, I have to go back to a question you asked earlier and I didn't answer. That is to do with trust. And when we spend this time with the community, each one of them, it takes a lot of time to get their trust. And so we build a trust both ways. That is for them with us and us with them. So in that way, they trust us to be able to give them the correct advice and way forward on how to protect and to manage their land and their livelihood and all that. And so when we get an interest from the community, it doesn't necessarily mean that we go in there and go out in one or two years. It is like a lifetime bond between the community and FORCERT, so it is a long term relationship.
Cosmas Makamet [00:07:21]:
And so I'll go back to your question now. Yes, Papua New Guinea is a large country with a lot of biodiversity and with plants, animals, insects. And so at this time, the world or people out there are interested in what is in PNG because of the natural forests we have, the forests that are, virgan forests that are still standing, and there's a lot of threat from large scale logging and palm oil and all that developments coming into the country. And at the same time, there's climate change and how we would, as part of a country, contribute to the climate change mechanisms on how to decrease all the carbon and all that, and having a PNG as a sink. And so there's a lot of interest in there. And while we are talking about that, there are like big donor USAID, other donors, European Union recently coming into the country to look at opportunities and support the country in trying to protect its nature and its natural resources and be able to go into climate change measures that would contribute to the Worldwide project on climate change. So there is a big interest and recently we've had seen the French President come across and the French government signed an agreement with PNG and which is part of this, and the US coming in and also other countries coming in because of this interest. So, yes, PNG has a lot to offer in the Pacific and also in the world.
Craig Pollard [00:09:01]:
And that sounds like a lot of sort of opportunities in terms of the visibility, the global visibility of Papua New Guinea, but I guess that presents challenges as well, right? Because wherever there are big flows of cash coming, there are particularly when it comes to carbon credits, for example, there are a lot of less reputable organisations and people vying for that funding.
Cosmas Makamet [00:09:25]:
Yes, with that comes the challenges of who's going to get this cake. Part of the cake, like with the European Union recently. And so the organisations, big organisations, international organisations that are present in the country, they will go for the funding as well. And with smaller ones, like FORCERT and other sister organisations, we will go for the funding as well. But in a sense, the challenge is how we present ourselves to these potential donors and that is really important. And we've learnt some of the skills and the tools from Fundraising Radicals and that is very important for us to put forward, to sell ourselves the best way in order for us to secure that funding. Because everyone, they are doing the same sort of thing. But ours has to sell.
Cosmas Makamet [00:10:16]:
So we have to be on top of what everyone else is doing. We have to provide them the best and be able to convince them that ours is worth funding than the others so they could put us on top of their list rather than at the bottom. That is sort of a challenge right now.
Craig Pollard [00:10:38]:
But you're very modest because you talk about sort of the selling side of it. But there's also what I've been very impressed with, FORCERT, is how you position yourselves, because often these decisions, particularly the big funding decisions, there's a lot of consultation, there are advisory groups and boards, et cetera, that help to shape these decisions. And you and FORCERT have done, have very sort of savvy about this and you are feeding into these mechanisms to inform and shape how donors engage with this issue within PNG. Is that correct?
Cosmas Makamet [00:11:17]:
That is correct. During our work, as part of our work, we would like to communicate better with the government, with other stakeholders and with potential donors, whoever is present or their representatives in the country. So we have one of the programmes called the National Level Programme. And that programme is very important to our work and it sort of provides an advocacy role with the government and trying to advise them on certain things. That we are very good at, like in the land use planning, in the high conservation value, in what we do at the community level. We advise through that programme, advise the Government at that level, at the provincial level or at the national level, about how things would work and how the communities are going to take it. Because in most times, most of the projects are top down, which means that they make the decisions and all this at the top, at the national government level, and they are not properly informed to be able to make those decisions, whether it be policy or activity or whatever. So our work in this programme, the National Level Programme, is to give them that advice and so we link them down to that is playing out very well.
Cosmas Makamet [00:12:35]:
So that is where we get to mix around with the government, with the policymakers and with the potential donors, maybe this and USAID or whoever. And so that is where they will see that we are an important part of this sort of work and that plays out very well. That is playing out really well now.
Craig Pollard [00:13:02]:
And that investment of time with the relationship building, with the advocacy work is really starting to show fruit. Tell me about who owns FORCERT, and you know, because your relationship with the communities is actually very much two way.
Cosmas Makamet [00:13:17]:
So FORCERT is like we have a board, but before the board we have shareholders. These shareholders are community groups and they sit on this. We have right now about eight or nine shareholders. These are communities and they have the representatives in that shareholders. Then comes the board and then the management team and then below all the others. So they have a say the community groups. So all these community groups, at some point they will become members of the shareholders, so they become a shareholder, which means that they get to contribute to the running of the organisation and in their communities as well. So many a times they contribute to how the FORCERT plans outlets work.
Cosmas Makamet [00:14:08]:
So we have a five year strategic plan and they contributed to it in 2019, 2020 and so their contributions are in that plans. And then when they come to these meetings, they always ask if you're doing here in this community, what about us? And if this committee is facing these issues over here and you're helping with them over here, why don't you do the same over here? If they are facing threats with the locking company over here, how can we be able to apply similar sort of tactics here to keep the foresters out? And so it is sort of like a family and when we get to get we have shareholders meeting every year and they get to share their stories as well. So each of the representatives from each of the communities get to share their stories. So it is a really good way of having an organisation that's not only managed on top, but we have members from the community as well that come into share the experience.
Craig Pollard [00:15:11]:
It's such an authentic sort of fantastic community model. In some ways this must be a threat to organisations and government and other vested interests. How do you manage that tension? Because if logging companies want to come in and a community saying that you're guiding and supporting says no and they're equipped to understand their legal rights and their ability and how to manage that and their own resources, does some of that come back on you as well? Some of that tension that challenge impact on your work as well, your wider work?
Cosmas Makamet [00:15:48]:
Yes. Recently FORCERT was mentioned in the Parliament and the Member for Pomeo actually named FORCERT in Parliament and posted our work on the carbon credits work and how we're supporting the community there. And so he was naming us as an instigator of issues and all that, but they actually took the locking company to court for infringing on their land.
Craig Pollard [00:16:14]:
So the community successfully took the company to court and Forsa was named in parliament as causing trouble. Wow.
Cosmas Makamet [00:16:27]:
And so actually the community, they got a court order injunction to keep the locking company out and that's what they did. And the locking company actually was invited by the member to go in there and lock, so he was like part of it. So actually that happened and then that locking company got kicked out and they are still out, they have not gone in because the court injunction is still valid. So that was one of the reasons he didn't like it. But the case is on foot, which means that the lawyer is taking it and he wants to go further and then win it. So the community is they have paid for the court fees themselves, they have paid up to 200,000 Kina. 250,000 Kina already.
Craig Pollard [00:17:14]:
That's sort of $50,000, $50-60,000.
Cosmas Makamet [00:17:17]:
That's right, yes.
Craig Pollard [00:17:23]:
So the community have paid their own court and legal fees to fight this, to prevent the loggers coming in.
Cosmas Makamet [00:17:24]:
Yes.
Craig Pollard [00:17:24]:
But the loggers are probably offering a huge amount of money for this land. So what's the incentive? Why refuse the loggers when they're offering all of this cash and pay money out to preserve the land? What's the incentive there?
Cosmas Makamet [00:17:37]:
So the locking company was coming through their land, which they have set aside as a conservation area, and this is the area upon which they are going to set aside for their carbon credits work. And this is like 21,000 ha that they are protecting. So the logging company was going to go through their forest area and lock part of that forest out and so they were protecting that area from the logger, so they could not destroy the forest because they're going to use that for their carbon credits work. 21,000, that's the land area they were protecting.
Craig Pollard [00:18:13]:
A virgin forest?
Cosmas Makamet [00:18:12]:
Yes, of virgin forest. And if the loggers had gone through, they would have destroyed most of it, like maybe 5000 ha they would have destroyed.
Craig Pollard [00:18:24]:
Wow. That's an incredible outcome. But I guess it's a never ending battle, isn't it? It's a constant challenge for these communities to be preserving themselves when it seems like so much is against them, so much vested financial interest against them.
Cosmas Makamet [00:18:39]:
Yes. And it is not only happening here in this one community, it is happening like with four or five other communities around the country. So in New Island, which it's happening there as well, and also in East New Britain and then down in the mainland as well. So it is happening everywhere with those threats looming. And if we are not careful, if they do not take out, hold these companies out, they're going to lose before us. So that's one of the challenges not only for FORCERT, but for the communities as well. So we have to find a way to stop this. So maybe this case here that I mentioned, maybe if it goes through, then they will use a similar tactics with a court injunction or with a conservation deed signed by the clan leaders and then they will use that.
Cosmas Makamet [00:19:28]:
So they are actually testing what we call a conservation deed, which is like an agreement that the clan members of all that land, sorry, signed a document and said if there's any development taking place here, we all will agree to make the change. But for now, we would like to protect our land for the purposes for conservation work. And they signed this and then have the stem from their courthouse and a legal person signs, agrees to it or witnesses it, and then they use this document as a legal document to protect their land.
Craig Pollard [00:18:23]:
This is such important work and the sort of financial sustainability of FORCERT here, to be able to continue supporting these communities, to continue building that trust and those relationships and equipping them not only with the services sort of the core services they need, but also helping them with their advocacy to maintain the forests and their land.
Craig Pollard [00:20:24]:
If you're enjoying this conversation and would like to hear other global perspectives on fundraising and leadership in the nonprofit sector, then please do subscribe using the links in the show notes. If you want to find out more about our work, please do visit our website, www.fundraisingradicals.com. Now, back to the conversation.
Craig Pollard [00:20:49]:
Where is your funding coming from and what are some of the opportunities and challenges you see on the financial sustainability side?
Cosmas Makamet [00:20:47]:
Right now, most of our funding is coming from a major donor called Bread For The World. And Bread For The World is a German non government organisation and it has been with us, or we have been with Bread For The World for more than ten years. And we are lucky to have Bread for the World, which has a regional office in Port Moresby in PNG. So this is one of the donors that understands us very well, which means that they know how we operate and would like to fund not only the programmes, but they fund the institution like the whole organisation and what we do, including all the other costs. So in that way, we're able to run go a very long way. But this partnership we have with Bread, it's been going on for a while, but we've been having issues with co funding, like the additional top up in our budget. We have to meet and then we have to find other sources. So Bread has informed us that we have to find that additional the co donors from elsewhere to match their funding grant.
Cosmas Makamet [00:22:08]:
And that is an issue that we've been faced with for the last four or five years longer. That is why we need that training from Fundraising Radicals. And so we have to find that co owner, because in the future, Bread is going to cut back on its percentage, because right now, and in the past, it was like funding more than 50% of our budget, the institutional side of it. So we have to find that other 50% from elsewhere. And if it cuts back, it means that they go down to 40 or 30, which means that we have to find the other component to fill that. So it is a threat on this. And also we have to move forward in trying to raise that from now and onwards, because although we have an agreement for the next three years, but it means that we have to find that other 50%. So from next year onwards, we have a 50% funding secured for our work, but it means that we have to find the other 50% from elsewhere that we have to top up.
Craig Pollard [00:23:15]:
That's not an easy thing for a small organisation like FORCERT to do. I mean, you say that you're lucky to have Bread for the World, but I feel like they're also very fortunate to have you, an organisation that has grown from the communities and that is so authentic and impactful in your work. I think they're lucky to have you and they've been an incredibly loyal funder for more than a decade. But the challenge of match funding brings a certain level of pressure and stress to small organisations. What are your options? What's your pipeline? Are you looking at other institutional donors? Are you looking locally? And how are you aiming to raise this match funding?
Cosmas Makamet [00:23:58]:
Okay, so first of all, myself, that is the challenge within the organisation. Like, I have been doing most of the fundraising work with my colleague, the technical advisor, so I need a team. I need a team to help me with the fundraising exercise. So it's not only a one person team, we have to have a team to help go forward with this. And so I need this team to be able to not only for now, but into the future, so I could concentrate on other things, the management of the organisation, all the others. Because most of the time now is trying to raise money, raise funds for the institution. And then I do not do other things that I'm supposed to do. So first is that and then while concentrating on that, we have to look at other options.
Cosmas Makamet [00:24:45]:
And so with the training that we've had, we were able to communicate, like, look further than just the normal we wait and the donor comes sort of thing. We have to go out there and look. And with the training that we received, that is what we've just like for this year. In the last two, three months, we're going to the private foundations, private funds and foundation, and we've connected with two or three, and then we are in communication with them now with the Rolex Foundation and with Hans Wildoff. And we had a very interesting communication about a few weeks a week ago and then they are looking forward to us communicating with them further on this. And so there are like two or three that we're going to communicate further with them. And that is very interesting because in the past we were looking at the normal proposal writing and wait and then they come and find us. Now we have to go out and find them because they are there and we were not aware that they were there.
Cosmas Makamet [00:25:50]:
So that is the skill and the tool that we used from this training that we have to go out instead of we're sitting and wait. So this is an important skill that we've picked up from this training, but.
Craig Pollard [00:23:57]:
It's a big shift, isn't it? In terms of sort of positioning and waiting for requests for proposals to going out and sort of and actively seeking new types of donors as well because you already have those technical skills. You already have those networks, those relationships to be able to have and that credibility and visibility as well, that are so important to be able to have these conversations with organisations that are set up to give away funding, but maybe who don't know about you.
Cosmas Makamet [00:26:33]:
That is correct. So when we go out, feasibility part and all that. So we're now more prepared than like before. Like have that communication thing, the way we present and the information that we include in there. Although we are not there yet internally, we're down on our communications officer who left us this year. So we have to find another person to do that. And then our fundraising officer also left, so we're in recruitment and we still have that person, the two people on board, so they will help us with that. So when we go out, we have to have that information and how we can sell ourselves better and get that information that they require in the way they want it and so we can be able to.
Cosmas Makamet [00:27:17]:
So that was why I was saying that we needed a team and they will spend time on making preparations for those tools that we can use to communicate with the potential donors. So that is the way we're going forward.
Craig Pollard [00:27:32]:
It's not easy recruitment. I know recruitment has been hugely challenging for you, but it feels like you talk about a team, but it's much closer than a team. This group of people who work for Forsa, it's more of a family than a team. And let's just go to your ambition for what you're aiming to do Forsa, because this is about sustainability, but with the security challenges within Papua New Guinea as well, your ambition is to bring all of this together into one place, right? So bring the team together on site. Is that still your priority? And do you see that happening?
Cosmas Makamet [00:26:32]:
Yes, we would like to bring all the staff together in one spot and that is still our ambition. We would like to go forward with this. We started earlier this year to communicate on the possibilities of having a facility where we could have everyone on one side on one site and be able to easier and with all the security issues and all that where they could be more secure and feel secure enough to be able to perform the jobs so do their work much more easily. So that is still going on. However, I don't think it will be materialised this year, we have to look at next year. But that is still in place. We are still going for that. And hopefully with our communication there has been communication going well with the Mahonia Na Dari chairperson, a place outside of Kimbe where we were trying to and it's going well.
Cosmas Makamet [00:29:18]:
But we have to give our proposal to him and we're still waiting on how we would like to communicate further with him and see what the deal will come up to. So that is still in progress, but we have not had any results out of it as yet.
Craig Pollard [00:29:36]:
Okay. Because you have a lot of sort of different challenges, but you also have a very diverse set of, you know, you're talking to institutional donors, you're having conversations now with local corporates, regional corporates trusts and foundations who have a specific interest in Papua New Guinea, in sustainable forestry. But you also have a social enterprise arm as well. And it's never a smoother journey, but is that still a part of your funding? And where is the sort of sustainable, the social enterprise part of your work?
Cosmas Makamet [00:30:09]:
Thank you. The social enterprise arm has been picked up by the western province and provincial government. They actually funded 180,000 Kina, which is like $40,000 put towards funding two solar combination dryers for the cacao, the chocolate thing.
Craig Pollard [00:30:27]:
So drying cacao. Yes, for the communities drying cacao so they can sell it into local markets or international markets.
Cosmas Makamet [00:30:36]:
So they funded these solar dryers so the communities can sell to international markets. So the solar dryer will now be able to meet high quality, high standards because previously there was smoke tainted because they normally smoked bins, but now it will be solar dried, so they will give a high quality product which they can be able to export overseas. So the provincial government has picked that up and so they've supported us with two of the communities and they are looking forward to supporting more communities with similar cacao projects. And so we're also connecting further with them with other work. So they would like to fund other work as well, including land use planning and demarcation of the land boundaries. And also that because now the palm oil is expanding everywhere and they would like to manage the use of the forest and so the people are concerned and so the government is concerned as well. So that's why the provincial government is coming on board. On the other side, the work is going really well.
Cosmas Makamet [00:31:45]:
After that installation, these two facilities have been installed. And they are ready to go. They are now producing the solar dried cacao and for last six months, they've sold like three tonnes of the cacao from this. So that is really good story. So they're working on it right now to have more bins into these solar dryers to be able to market, but at the moment, it's only marketing nationally, like, locally, and afterwards, when we have established the links, then they can be able to market overseas.
Craig Pollard [00:32:19]:
And this is just another sort of side, a facet of the partnerships you have with your communities and how sort of fawcett is part of this community as well. It's such an inspiring and fascinating story and the impact of your work is really incredible. Thank you so much, Cosmas, for talking to me today, for this conversation, for all of your work. It's massively appreciated. Now, I'm going to let you go to your funder meeting, which is happening very soon. Massively appreciate you taking the time out and talking a little bit about fundraising and leadership in PNG. Thank you.
Cosmas Makamet [00:32:57]:
Thank you very much for having me and all the best with your work and we hope to see you again sometime in PNG and all our other friends. Thank you very much.
Craig Pollard [00:33:08]:
It's always wonderful catching up with Cosmas. FORCERT is an amazing organisation working at the sharp end of biodiversity loss prevention and has developed an effective model for community engagement, ownership and empowerment. This is a tiny nonprofit facing up to global companies and national government. It's incredible, brave and deeply inspiring. If you'd like to listen to more episodes of the Fundraising Radicals podcast or find out more about the Fundraising Radicals and our work, please do visit our website at www.fundraisingradicals.com. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Bye.
