Grounding conservation in community rights

Field-grounded social safeguards, FPIC, and GEDSI for conservation in Southeast Asia and beyond

Ground Truth Advisory is a specialist social safeguards practice based in Bangkok, with embedded field networks across Thailand and Southeast Asia. We bring field-tested, community-centered methods to conservation organizations, protected area programs, donor-funded projects, and nature finance developers navigating IFC Performance Standards, World Bank ESF, Green Climate Fund ESP, Verra SD VISta, and Biodiversity Credit Alliance safeguard requirements.

Our Services Download Our Capability Statement
How we work

Conservation works when communities have a real voice in decisions that affect their land and livelihoods.

Community-first scoping

We listen to the people whose land and livelihoods are closest to the project before designing the assessment. Their knowledge, priorities, and concerns shape the methodology before any compliance framework is applied.

Justice-driven safeguards

We design safeguards for material change in how communities are treated, not just procedural compliance. Our approach draws on environmental justice frameworks that address distributional, procedural, and recognition dimensions.

Interdisciplinary rigor

We conduct both social and ecological research, employing qualitative and quantitative methods across disciplines. The strongest findings come from this kind of rigorous, interdisciplinary lens, and we build every assessment around it.

Clarity and transparency, always

Every engagement produces a specific, named product with a clear scope, timeline, and compliance standard. You know exactly what you will receive.

Honest about limitations

We are clear about the scope and constraints of every assessment, including where our own expertise is still developing. Credibility comes from accuracy and transparency.

Communities as experts

The people living alongside conservation projects are not beneficiaries to be consulted. They are active experts with knowledge that shapes better outcomes.

Standards & Frameworks We Work With
IFC Performance Standards World Bank Environmental & Social Framework Green Climate Fund Environmental & Social Policy GCF Indigenous Peoples Policy ADB Safeguard Policy Statement CMP Open Standards for Conservation EU INTPA Safeguards USAID Environmental Compliance Verra SD VISta Biodiversity Credit Alliance Principles Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards TNFD LEAP CSRD ESRS E4 IFC Performance Standards World Bank Environmental & Social Framework Green Climate Fund Environmental & Social Policy GCF Indigenous Peoples Policy ADB Safeguard Policy Statement CMP Open Standards for Conservation EU INTPA Safeguards USAID Environmental Compliance Verra SD VISta Biodiversity Credit Alliance Principles Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards TNFD LEAP CSRD ESRS E4
Services

Social safeguards, FPIC, grievance redress, and GEDSI support for conservation and development organizations.

Conservation Program Design & Grant Writing

The Problem

Conservation organizations lose funding rounds because proposals lack credible social safeguards components. Funders like the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, Darwin Initiative, and Global Environment Facility increasingly reject applications without clear community engagement strategies.

What We Deliver

Complete proposal packages with embedded social safeguards: Theory of Change development, logframes, and community engagement plans that funders expect. Monthly fundraising retainers available for conservation organizations.

Proposals Logframes Theory of Change Fundraising Retainer

FPIC Process Design & Compliance

The Problem

Conservation organizations managing protected areas, donor-funded projects requiring IFC or GCF compliance, and biodiversity credit developers seeking Verra SD VISta or BCA certification must all demonstrate Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. Each framework's requirements differ, and most teams lack the social science expertise to design compliant consent processes that communities experience as legitimate rather than extractive.

What We Deliver

Complete FPIC process design and documentation packages: consent protocols, documentation frameworks, benefit-sharing mechanism design, and community monitoring systems formatted for your specific donor, crediting body, or institutional requirements. We design the process; your field team implements it.

Consent Protocols Documentation Frameworks Benefit-Sharing Design Community Monitoring Systems

Social Safeguards, Grievance Redress & Risk Assessment

The Problem

Conservation and development projects affect communities unevenly. Women, ethnic minorities, Indigenous peoples, and households dependent on natural resources bear disproportionate costs when safeguards are treated as paperwork rather than protection. When grievances go unheard, projects stall, lose funding, or cause harm. Most organizations lack context-specific grievance redress systems that communities trust and actually use.

What We Deliver

Community-level social risk assessments, vulnerability analyses, and grievance redress mechanism (GRM) design. We build GRMs tailored to your project geography and institutional context, including intake protocols, tracking databases, feedback loops, and staff training. Full environmental and social management frameworks to World Bank, IFC, ADB, and Green Climate Fund standards.

Grievance Redress Mechanism Design Social Risk Assessment Vulnerability Analysis Environmental & Social Management Framework

Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Systems

The Problem

Conservation projects report monitoring data that tracks ecological indicators but cannot demonstrate whether social safeguards are functioning. Funders and verifiers are noticing.

What We Deliver

Monitoring frameworks that integrate safeguards indicators alongside ecological metrics. Participatory monitoring and evaluation protocols with community-led indicators, combined with environmental and social management packages that track whether safeguards produce real outcomes.

Monitoring & Evaluation Framework Community-led Indicator Sets Social Management Integration

Training, Capacity Building & GEDSI

The Problem

Conservation organizations need field teams trained in FPIC, social safeguards, grievance redress, and gender equality, disability, and social inclusion (GEDSI). Generic corporate responsibility training does not address the specific requirements of consent processes, safeguards compliance, or the structural inequalities that conservation interventions can reinforce.

What We Deliver

Workshops and training modules on social safeguards, FPIC implementation, GRM management, gender analysis, and social inclusion for conservation practitioners. GEDSI assessments and action plans for programs seeking to meet donor requirements on gender mainstreaming. Licensed curricula available for organizations building internal capacity.

Workshop Delivery GEDSI Assessment & Action Plans Licensed Curricula Training Materials
Need a safeguards framework scoped for your project?
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About us

Safeguards expertise grounded in years of field research.

Tyler Nuckols
Tyler Nuckols
Founder & Principal Consultant

Most conservation teams don't carry social safeguards expertise in-house. Ground Truth Advisory delivers that work: FPIC process design, GRM development, GEDSI assessments, social risk assessment, and compliance documentation in formats that donors, conservation organizations, crediting bodies, and development finance institutions accept. Defined scope, defined timelines, defined pricing. For engagements requiring additional capacity, GTA works with a network of vetted associate consultants with complementary expertise in social assessment, gender analysis, and community facilitation.

PhD candidate in Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Over a decade of conservation practice spanning Southeast Asia and the Americas, grounded in doctoral research on environmental justice and political ecology. MS in Global Conservation Leadership from Colorado State University. Certified in CMP Open Standards, conflict management, and program management.

Full CV ResearchGate LinkedIn
Research and Practice Experience

Prior project experience

Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand

Environmental Justice Assessment, Kuiburi National Park

Farming communities adjacent to Kuiburi National Park faced crop raiding, property damage, and physical danger from wild elephants with minimal input into coexistence governance. Tyler conducted 33 months of participatory action research as part of his doctoral work: 40 semi-structured interviews, participatory mapping, and community workshops documenting how conservation governance distributed costs and benefits.

Outcome: Comprehensive environmental justice assessment, 3 peer-review publications, and assessments for local NGO partner on program evaluation, participant justice outcomes, and vulnerability assessment.

Environmental Justice Protected Areas PAR
Community engagement in pineapple fields near Kuiburi National Park

New York State, USA

Equity and Environmental Justice in Climate Adaptation Policy

University of Colorado Boulder & The Nature Conservancy – Co-Investigator/Collaborator

Conducted qualitative research on the equity implications of sea-level rise adaptation strategies in coastal and riverine communities. Responsibilities included designing and conducting stakeholder interviews, thematic coding and analysis, and contributing to two academic publications. The project identified the unintended social consequences of climate adaptation programs, such as flood buyouts and managed retreat, and proposed a justice-centered evaluation framework.

Outcome: Transferable toolkit to assess equity and procedural fairness in adaptation planning, since adapted for human-wildlife conflict contexts through doctoral research.

Publications: PLOS Climate (2023) · Global Environmental Change (2024)

Environmental Justice Climate Adaptation Qualitative Research Policy
Environmental justice framework diagram

Multi-country, Asia

Facilitating Human-Elephant Coexistence through Regenerative Agroecology

USFWS Project – Co-Investigator/Collaborator

Interdisciplinary, multi-country study investigating how agroecological systems can transition from conflict-prone to coexistence-focused regimes by understanding and shifting human and elephant behavior. The project spans four Asian countries and examines social-ecological dynamics of human-elephant conflict using quantitative surveys, ecological monitoring, behavioral assessments, and agent-based modeling. Responsibilities included developing indicators of community tolerance, designing experimental cropping interventions, and supporting participatory research with farming communities.

Outcome: Predictive model for resilience in agroecosystems and a generalizable framework for applying coexistence strategies across human-wildlife conflict contexts.

Agroecology Human-Wildlife Coexistence Mixed Methods Multi-country
Field researchers setting up camera traps for wildlife monitoring
Facing a similar challenge? Scope your project
Read Our Blog

Seeds of Knowledge

April 2026

Writing Grants in a Contracting World

The funding environment for conservation has contracted sharply. How to build proposals that still compete when the pool is smaller and the scrutiny is tighter.
March 2026

The Alphabet Soup of Monitoring and Evaluation

M&E, MEL, MEAL, MERL: the acronyms keep multiplying but the practice often stays the same. A field guide to what each one means, where adaptive management fits in, and why the real problem is governance, not terminology.
February 2026

Why Conservation Safeguards Fail

The documents are well-designed. The outcomes for communities are poor. Five structural reasons conservation safeguards fail to translate from paper to practice.
February 2026

FPIC Requirements Across the Biodiversity Credit Market: A Practical Comparison

Verra SD VISta, CCB Standards, and the Biodiversity Credit Alliance Principles all require FPIC, but their specific requirements differ in ways that affect how you design your consent process. A side-by-side comparison.
Read More on Substack
Courses

Professional development for conservation practitioners

Barbed wire fence in misty landscape
Short Course

Environmental Justice and Conservation

How conservation interventions distribute costs and benefits across communities, and what practitioners can do about it. Covers distributive, procedural, and recognition justice frameworks applied to protected areas, community-based conservation, and nature finance. Draws on case studies from Southeast Asia and the Americas.

Distributive Justice Procedural Justice Recognition Justice Protected Areas
Online, self-paced Enroll
Raised fist at a community gathering
Short Course

Social Safeguards, FPIC, and GEDSI in Conservation

Practical training on designing and implementing social safeguards, Free, Prior, and Informed Consent processes, grievance redress mechanisms, and gender equality, disability, and social inclusion frameworks. Aligned to IFC, World Bank, GCF, and major biodiversity credit standard requirements.

Social Safeguards FPIC Grievance Redress GEDSI
Online, self-paced Inquire
Person reading a book
Short Course

Conservation Social Science Research Methods

Research design and methods for conservation practitioners who need to collect and analyze social data. Covers qualitative interviewing, participatory methods, survey design, ethical data collection with Indigenous peoples and local communities, and IRB protocols for conservation research.

Qualitative Methods Participatory Research Survey Design Research Ethics
Online, self-paced Inquire
Contact

Scope your project

Describe your project and timeline. We scope within 48 hours and send a fixed-price proposal within one week.

Based in Bangkok · Delivered Worldwide

tyler@gtadv.org
linkedin.com/in/tyler-nuckols
gtadv.org