Writers: Susan Kandel and Andrew Davis of the PRISMA Foundation, an environment and development research center based in El Salvador

Report: Conservation and Community Rights: Lessons from Mesoamerica. A report by the PRISMA Foundation for COP13, the thirteenth conference of the parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Cancun, Mexico, in December 2016.

This collaborative research report shows how land and resource rights for indigenous peoples and traditional communities are key to conserving biodiversity, presenting evidence from case studies across Mesoamerica. The report garnered extensive media coverage around the world, including in The Guardian and Mongabay.

How we worked together:

• I consulted with lead authors Andrew Davis and Susan Kandel of PRISMA as they drafted, compiled, and revised this collaborative report. Our conversations focused on how to persuade the target audience, how to sharpen and clarify the key upshots of the research, and how best to structure the report.
• I participated in a meeting about the report’s message and voice with PRISMA’s press agency.
• After Andrew and Susan had revised the report, I edited it for clarity, accessibility, tone, and paragraph-level organization.