Honeyguide

This is about impact and evidence. In the long run, Honeyguide needs evidence of ecological integrity; today, their work builds on an existing body of evidence that communities are the best stewards of land. To validate their model, they must also demonstrate their livelihood stack works and communities generate money to sustain WMAs. They’re making progress: two WMAs supported by Honeyguide are financially self-sustaining. Four more are on their way, already covering 50% of their operational costs from community-generated income. Recently, Honeyguide collected baseline ecological, social, and financial data for 8 out of the 13 WMAs (the rest will be completed by mid-2026). This will enable Honeyguide to conduct a pre-post analysis of its impact on WMAs. Externally, a 2024 wildlife monitoring study conducted in the Tarangire Ecosystem in Northern Tanzania found that a Honeyguide-supported community-based conservation area helped stabilize herbivore populations, reduced human-wildlife conflict, and restored migration routes. Honeyguide is piloting wildlife monitoring and satellite-based habitat monitoring for WMAs to track wildlife numbers, ecological trends, and habitat conditions. For both financial sustainability and wildlife protection to work, Honeyguide needs to get communities on board. They have qualitative evidence they are effective at this – In 2025, a peer-reviewed study showed local attitudes shifted from WMA opposition to widespread support in the Randilen WMA after Honeyguide intervention.

This is about scope. There are 24 WMAs in Tanzania covering over 2.7M hectares of land, with 13 more WMAs under development on unoccupied unprotected village land. A WMA contains multiple communities within it; there is an average of ~9 communities in each of the WMAs Honeyguide serves. The learnings from Tanzania WMAs can apply to other community-led conservation efforts globally. While WMAs are the core focus, Honeyguide believes the methodology can also be applied to marine and village forests and conservancies in Tanzania and beyond.

This is about whether nonprofits can deliver the model. Honeyguide launched an online learning hub last year to help other nonprofits replicate its strategies. It is a good start, but the content is a work-in-progress. They are focused on capturing what their experts do to professionalize WMAs and translating that into playbooks (e.g., templates, training manuals, assessment tools) for laypeople. Honeyguide will pilot the use of playbooks internally with recent college graduates and externally with one NGO. This will help Honeyguide iterate on its scale strategy .

This is about what the model costs if delivered by nonprofits and whether philanthropy is willing and able to pay. Honeyguide currently needs 600K - 1M USD over five years of capital expenditures to professionalize a WMA. The cost of professionalizing WMAs will be funded by philanthropy (for Honeyguide and copycats). After this upfront cost, each WMA needs 150K USD in net revenue annually to sustain itself. Of the WMAs which earn revenue, 70% is from carbon and it will likely be the main revenue source for WMAs for the foreseeable future; thus, nailing the carbon playbook is critical for WMA success. In 2025, Honeyguide signed an MOU with Carbon Tanzania for the next ten years to do just that. This will be the first national inventory of carbon-feasible community conservation areas in Tanzania and will position its WMAs for long-term carbon investment. Further, Honeyguide worked with Sustainable Finance Coalition to evaluate 10 non-carbon finance solutions; they shortlisted three to test this year, including conservation trust funds and biodiversity credits. This is critical because for some WMAs carbon credits will not be an option.