Going to the Source: African Environmental Knowledge, Climate Management and Free Knowledge

Going to the Source: African Environmental Knowledge, Climate Management and Free Knowledge

A 2026 Senegal Environmental Justice Documentation Project

Project Overview

I am an environmental researcher, community outreach volunteer, writer, photographer, filmmaker, and longtime volunteer contributor to free public knowledge.

For more than two decades, I have worked at the intersection of environmental issues, community development, agriculture, ecological knowledge, communications, and public education. My approach is simple: I go to the source.

Rather than relying solely on information available online, I travel to communities and organizations, meet people doing environmental work, observe their projects, document what I learn, and then find appropriate ways to share that knowledge with a wider public.

I am seeking funding to continue this work in Senegal in December 2026, with the First African Environmental Justice Conference in Dakar as the central gathering for the project.

My goal is not simply to attend a conference. I want to expand research and documentation I have already undertaken in Senegal and connect it to my larger work in environmental education, African ecological knowledge, filmmaking, and free public knowledge.

A Long-Term Environmental Practice

My environmental work began long before my current work in Senegal.

From 2000 to 2014, I worked with Belize River Valley Development, gaining 14 years of experience with community development and environmental issues in Belize.

Beginning in 2009, I also began supporting the Permaculture Institute in Techiman, Ghana, as an outreach volunteer.

These experiences taught me that environmental knowledge does not exist only in universities or research institutions. It is also held by farmers, community organizations, development workers, Indigenous and traditional knowledge holders, and people who have spent years working directly with land and water.

My work has increasingly focused on finding ways to make that knowledge visible.

Senegal and the Sahel

I have invested my own resources in researching environmental and development issues in Senegal and the wider Sahel.

I have worked to promote the work of REDES in Senegal, including its 2025 Ecofest, and have supported the Smiles Association in Mauritania.

These organizations and community groups often have important environmental stories to tell but limited communications resources.

They may have photographs and information but lack someone who can turn those materials into public communications.

I have helped fill that gap.

When organizations provide me with photographs that they own, I do not upload those photographs to Wikimedia Commons because I respect copyright and the requirements of free licensing. Instead, I use other platforms and tools to help them communicate their work.

I have created short promotional videos using CapCut and distributed material through platforms such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts.

This has taught me an important lesson:

Different kinds of knowledge need different pathways to the public.

More Than Photography

Photography is an important part of my work, but I do not want my environmental documentation to stop with photographs.

I have paid filmmakers in Senegal to help document environmental work.

I have created video clips and short films.

I write about the organizations and environmental projects I encounter.

I create promotional materials.

I research the historical and environmental context behind the work.

And I look for ways to connect this material to public education.

I am interested in the entire process:

research → field experience → observation → interviews → photography → film → writing → public education → preservation and free knowledge

This is why the Dakar project is an expansion of existing work rather than a new interest.

Bioneers and the Creation of BioAfricain

In 2026, I attended the Bioneers conference in Berkeley, California, at UC Berkeley, serving as press/media for AfroCROWD.

The experience prompted me to think more deeply about the relationship between environmental knowledge and access to knowledge.

Bioneers brings together people working on environmental, ecological, social, and cultural issues. But attending conferences requires resources. Not everyone who could benefit from this knowledge can be in the room.

My experience led me to think about another model of knowledge sharing: free knowledge.

Through my years of volunteer work with Wikipedia and Wikimedia, I have seen the possibilities of a knowledge system in which information can be made freely accessible to the public.

Following Bioneers, I created BioAfricain as an effort to explore this idea through an African environmental lens.

The question became:

How can environmental knowledge gathered through conferences, communities, organizations, and field experience become accessible beyond the people who were able to attend?

Why Senegal in 2026?

The African Environmental Justice Conference in Dakar provides an important opportunity to deepen work I have already begun.

I want to learn directly from African environmental researchers, practitioners, community organizations, farmers, activists, and others working on environmental justice.

I am particularly interested in:

climate management and adaptation;

sustainable agriculture;

ecological restoration;

traditional and Indigenous ecological knowledge;

environmental justice;

land and water;

coastal and marine environments;

the Sahel;

community-based environmental work;

women and environmental stewardship;

food systems;

and the relationship between development and ecological knowledge.

I want to approach the conference not simply as an attendee but as a researcher and documentarian.

What I Will Produce

Funding would support a larger body of public documentation rather than a single conference report.

Potential outputs include:

Written research

Articles documenting Senegalese environmental projects, organizations, people, and ideas, including material developed from my existing Senegal research.

Photography

Original photographs documenting people, places, projects, landscapes, and environmental activities, with appropriate licensing and permissions.

Film and video

Short-form videos and, where appropriate, longer documentary material.

Public education

Articles and educational materials explaining environmental issues in accessible language.

Digital knowledge

Material suitable for appropriate free-knowledge platforms, including Wikimedia projects when copyright, licensing, notability, and other requirements are met.

Social media outreach

Short videos and other communications that can reach audiences beyond academic and environmental conferences.

What I Have Already Invested

I have personally financed a significant portion of this work.

I have paid for my own environmental research travel.

I financed my participation at Bioneers in Berkeley in 2026.

I have paid filmmakers in Senegal to document environmental work because I wanted to do more than take photographs.

I have invested time in researching Senegalese organizations and environmental projects.

I have created promotional materials for organizations that do not have their own public-relations resources.

I have created videos using materials provided by organizations and distributed them through platforms outside Wikipedia.

I have created blogs and other educational resources to preserve and share research.

This personal investment demonstrates that the proposed Dakar project is not an untested idea. It is the next stage of work I have already been doing.

Why Support Is Needed

My personal investment has allowed me to develop relationships, conduct research, travel, document environmental work, and experiment with different methods of public communication.

However, there is a limit to what one person can continue to finance independently.

Funding would allow me to expand the quality and scope of the work rather than simply increasing the number of trips or photographs.

Support would help cover expenses such as:

international airfare;

accommodation;

local transportation;

conference-related expenses;

research and documentation costs;

filmmaker or production support;

interviewing and communications;

and post-trip production and publication.

The purpose of funding is therefore not simply to get me to Dakar.

It is to enable a continuing environmental knowledge project.

A Different Kind of Environmental Documentation

I am especially interested in marginalized communities and organizations whose work may not receive the public relations attention given to larger institutions.

Many people doing important environmental work do not have a publicist.

They may not have a communications department.

They may have valuable photographs but no one producing video.

They may have generations of ecological knowledge but little representation in digital knowledge systems.

My role is to help create bridges.

I do not see myself as the person who owns their knowledge.

I see myself as a facilitator and documentarian who can help connect community knowledge to wider audiences while respecting ownership, permission, context, and cultural knowledge.

From Environmental Knowledge to Free Knowledge

The larger question behind this project is:

Who gets to participate in creating the environmental knowledge that future generations will find?

Climate change is not only a scientific or technological problem. It is also a knowledge problem.

There is knowledge in universities.

There is knowledge in conferences.

There is knowledge in government agencies.

There is knowledge in environmental organizations.

And there is knowledge in communities.

My interest is in building bridges among these forms of knowledge.

My Wikimedia experience has also taught me that documenting knowledge today can affect what becomes visible to people years from now.

That is why I call my approach going to the source.

I want to learn from people doing the work, document responsibly, and then find appropriate ways to make what I learn more accessible.

The Larger Vision

The Dakar project would become part of a continuing body of work connecting:

Africa + environmental knowledge + community development + climate management + documentation + public education + free knowledge.

The ultimate goal is not one conference.

It is the development of a sustainable knowledge practice in which environmental work that is often overlooked can be documented, contextualized, and made more visible.

I have already begun that work.

I am seeking support to take it further.

Any support will be appreciated. 

My Cashapp is

https://cash.app/$LindaDabo

My email is Belrivers@gmail.com for Zelle.

Text me at 646-730-4332