Our Approach

Our program promotes that leading conservation organizations working in different continents share their practical knowledge with each other, train and inspire their staff, and assess and identify potential recruits capable of managing some of their programs and teams in the field. We also invite trainees from other organizations who have the potential to play a clear role of leadership in the conservation and restoration of landscapes of high ecological value.

Course Structure

Our courses allow people already working in conservation organizations to enter into a one-year learning process compatible with maintaining their activities. Each course trains about 18 potential conservation program managers; most of them identified by our four partner organizations, plus a few guests from other conservation groups.

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 presently engaged in conservation either inside the four partner organizations, other allied organizations or in conservations groups working in other regions. This means that they are busy and with limited time to engage in a training program that could require several weeks of absence from their jobs.

Hence, in order to recruit professionals that are already engaged in conservation projects we suggest a training course composed of three phases:

Phase 1: 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 to five 90–120 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.

Phase 2: Onsite course with experienced team managers

The second phase will take place at a field site managed by one of the four organizations and will require two weeks of personal attendance by the students, away from their day-to-day responsibilities. The objective of this phase is to consolidate the concepts and ideas explored during the online phase by analysing real cases and discussing ideas with junior and senior colleagues from other continents. This phase will include sessions with CEOs or senior managers from the four organizations and other conservation groups who will discuss their management procedures and decisions through in-depth interviews with the course coordinators and participants. Interviews and high-quality conversations will be combined with indoor and outdoor group activities that will help not only to provide new practical knowledge to trainees, but also to assess their potential as program managers and conservation leaders. Thus, prospective program coordinators will be exposed to field conditions similar to those found in actual conservation programs. This field phase will also allow leaders of conservation organizations and the main trainers to assess the potential of their trainees to actually become effective team leaders and program coordinators.

Phase 3. Online meetings and discussions after the field course

During this phase we create opportunities for participants to connect with each other, discuss challenges associated with applying the ideas and tools learned during the course, introduce or detail new tools and approaches. The main objective of this phase is to “keep the conservation going” and to get participants thinking about team management and stakeholder relationship building issues, rather than getting “sucked into” their day-to-day problems and pressing tasks. Having implemented this phase in our first course, it is surprising how eager many participants are to stay connected to the group and the topics covered in the program. This phase lasts at least six months, but will most likely continue with sporadic meetings that will eventually connect the different cohorts of participants.

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), the course is open to 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. We also 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.

Profile of participants

The course is designed to train primarily young professionals (25-38 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 38 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.

“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