Our Approach

Our Courses

Our courses allow people who are already working in conservation organisations to undertake a five- to six-month course that is compatible with maintaining their current activities. Each course trains around 20 potential conservation program managers. These individuals are identified by our four original partner organizations and other selected conservation entities. Global courses are taught in English language, invite participants from all continents and their onsite phase usually takes place in an African park. Regional courses focus on organizations and conservation practitioners working in a certain region and can be taught in other languages, like a course in Spanish for South American conservationists in 2025, one in Portuguese for Brazilians in 2026. Regional courses are also planned for South East Asians and conservationists working in Oceania in 2027.

We look for trainees with at least five years of experience working in conservation programs in the field, who have the character, attitude and skills to become potential team leaders. Many of these potential trainees are currently employed by conservation organisations and have limited availability to participate in a training programme that could require several weeks’ absence from their jobs. To minimise disruption to their ongoing tasks while providing the best possible training, our courses consist of two phases.

4-5 months online phase: learning and discussion of multidisciplinary concepts and examples of conservation program management

In this phase, the lead trainer and small groups of trainees review and reflect on the concepts and examples related to each component of a conservation program as presented in the interdisciplinary conservation manual “Effective Conservation: Parks, Rewilding and Local Development”. These components include promotion, intelligence/information gathering, planning and norming, management of habitats and populations, conflict management, evaluation, and organizational aspects. This initial phase involves four 120-minute sessions with each group of students, spanning four to five months. In this way, the first phase will allow participants to acquire a shared foundation of concepts related to all aspects of a conservation program while they keep carrying out field work in their organizations.

A 10–12 day on-site phase led by experienced trainers and senior conservationists

The second phase takes place in a protected area managed by a selected conservation organisation. It typically requires students to be away from their day-to-day responsibilities for 10–12 days. This phase aims to consolidate the concepts and ideas explored during the online phase through the analysis of real cases and discussion with junior and senior colleagues from different organisations and contexts. This phase includes sessions with experienced trainers on team management and conservationists with experience of managing effective conservation initiatives. These senior managers share their personal experiences and hard-won lessons through in-depth conversations with the course coordinators and participants. Interviews and high-quality conversations are combined with indoor and outdoor group activities that provide trainees with new practical knowledge and help assess their potential as programme managers and conservation leaders. Thus, prospective programme coordinators are exposed to field conditions similar to those found in actual conservation programmes. This field phase enables conservation organisation leaders and main trainers to evaluate their trainees’ potential to become effective team leaders and programme coordinators.

Curricula

Here is a list of some key concepts discussed and taught during our courses:

Leadership, self-awareness, personality types, ways to provide feedback, effective communication, active listening, facilitation tools (open space, Theory U, future search, the 4 Ps, etc), the Adizes method for managing teams and organizations, self-reflection journaling, non-violent communication (NVC), conflict management and negotiation tools, ways to motivate teams, advice on hiring and firing team members, SMART objectives, stages of team development, High Performing Teams, mental models, credibility model, time management and personal priority setting, establishing collaborations with stakeholders.

Selection Process

Participants in our training programme are selected by invitation. There’s no open call for applications. We base our invitations on recommendations from trusted conservation practitioners and donors. We select participants on the basis of their track record, the profile of the organisations they work for and their personality traits.

Participating Organizations

Besides our main partner organizations (African Parks, Rewilding Argentina, Frankfurt Zoological Society and Australian Wildlife Conservancy), ECTI invites other outcome-oriented conservation organizations that are directly managing habitats and/or species at a significant scale. The larger the scale, the greater the direct impact on habitat and species recovery, and the greater the need to manage large teams on the ground, the more interesting it is for us. In general, we don’t train people to work in research centres or universities. In general, we focus more on NGOs than governments because the former tend to have more control to maintain a long-term vision without having to go through so many frequent policy changes. NGOs can also implement improvements in leadership and management style more easily than governments, which are constrained by many of the rigid rules and structures associated with public administration. This doesn’t preclude training professionals working in governmental offices who are leading key conservation programmes.

Profile of Participants

The course is designed to train primarily young professionals (25-40 years old) with at least four years of field experience in conservation organisations, who demonstrate commitment to their organisations, curiosity and intellectual openness to learn from different disciplines and sources of knowledge, and the character to take on responsibilities that include coordinating the activities of other team members and partners outside their institution. These characteristics are more important in the selection of participants than their academic background. In general, we do not seek to train graduate students with no previous experience of ‘real world’ conservation, researchers, or professionals with many years of experience (typically 40 years or older) with a well-established mindset and ‘toolbox’ that prevents them from being open to new ways of understanding conservation and their role in it.

Postcourse Continuous Training

All ECTI participants are welcome to continue their learning and networking process once they have completed a whole course. A whole range of activities and resources are available for this purpose. Throughout the year, they can take part in online seminars and group discussions focusing on various issues and tools related to project and team management. The ECTI YouTube channel publishes selected talks and videos related to these topics, and we publish a blog that summarizes some of the issues discussed in our courses, shares news about courses or activities carried out by our alumni, or recommends key readings and learning sources to explore.

In addition to these online activities and resources, we organise or support gatherings of ECTI alumni, which are important for promoting high-quality interactions that strengthen their interpersonal relationships and the global network of next-generation conservation leaders that is gradually forming. These include the first meeting of South American ECTI alumni in 2025 and the first global ECTI alumni meeting in 2026. Finally, we provide financial support for exchange trips, enabling ECTI participants to visit the field projects of fellow alumni working in different countries and organisations.

“We live in a time of rapid social change. Society is starting to recognise the scale and impact of declining biodiversity, and also that the time is now to give effect to profound and lasting change. We need people to do this—experts in their field and experts in leading teams. What better use of our resources is there than to prepare the next generation of leaders?”

— Tim Allard
CEO Australian Wildlife Conservancy