Why This Initiative?

The Problem

Even though there’s a significant availability of skilled professionals that are able to manage specific technical challenges in conservation (e.g. ecological research, wildlife management, project planning and administration, GIS, or environmental education), there’s a clear scarcity of transdisciplinary professionals with the experience and personality needed to coordinate entire conservation programs in the field. Managing such programs require hiring, inspiring, empowering and coordinating large teams composed of different people with diverse disciplinary origins that tend to have a narrow understanding of conservation challenges. It also includes building constructive relations with a great diversity of groups including local stakeholders, regional and national authorities, economic interest groups, donors, media, other conservationists, and academics. Finally, leading conservation teams in large nature reserves requires a long-term personal commitment to live in areas where “the action is needed” but which tend to lack in comfort and amenities compared to other more prestigious and comfortable positions.

This lack of experienced and effective team leaders is so severe that it often becomes a major bottleneck for some organizations to scale up their conservation actions. There are situations where a conservation program that has secured needed funding can’t work at full pace because the organization hasn’t found the right project leader after months of advertising such position. In parallel, most academic training programs for conservationists are run and taught by professionals with great theoretical knowledge but little experience in the actual management of conservation programs and organizations. Hence, we need to connect potential team leaders with experienced conservation practitioners to promote practice-based learning that will complete their preexisting academic training.

The Opportunity

In response to this challenge, we can bring together organizations that are achieving outstanding results in the conservation and restoration of wild landscapes and experiencing significant organizational growth as a result of their conservation achievements. Since 2023, we have identified 32 such organizations, which collectively manage more than 60 million hectares across landscapes of global significance. As these conservation NGOs grow, they increasingly need effective team leaders, while also holding decades of practical experience in managing successful conservation programs.

This creates an opportunity to connect these outstanding conservation organizations through a training program designed to expand their pool of professionals capable of leading current and future complex conservation programs. At the same time, we can foster the exchange of practical knowledge across organizations, enabling them to discover and learn from approaches they may not have encountered before, developed by organizations operating in very different contexts and organizational cultures.

“This training initiative is crucial for our managers to contextualize their efforts in the field. It will allow them to become aware of the level of commitment required to carry out a long-term project, to be inspired by successful examples, and to strengthen their knowledge, broadening the spectrum of possible strategies when making decisions. This practice-based and on-site school, led by an experienced international conservationist, ensures a practical and comprehensive approach that is difficult for each institution to achieve on its own.”

— Sofía Heinonen
CEO Rewilding Argentina