Conservation International (CI)
Conservation International (CI) is a global nonprofit organization founded in 1987, focusing on innovative conservation strategies aimed at protecting biodiversity through scientific research. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, CI operates in approximately forty-five countries, emphasizing the essential role of nature in human life while addressing the imbalances created by political and economic agendas. The organization employs initiatives such as the Rapid Assessment Program (RAP), which provides detailed surveys of ecosystems to aid governments and conservationists in safeguarding vulnerable resources.
CI identifies critical areas known as "biodiversity hot spots," which are under threat from human activity, and has established effective conservation strategies through workshops and programs like the Debt-for-Nature initiative. By 2008, CI had protected around 1.2 million square kilometers of endangered ecosystems. The organization also tackles climate change through projects such as tree planting, which helps to significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Additionally, CI supports local communities by promoting educational opportunities and ecotourism, ultimately fostering a sustainable relationship between people and the environment. CI is recognized for its contributions to biodiversity science, having documented numerous previously unknown species and participated in global surveys to understand the risks facing various animal populations.
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Conservation International (CI)
- DATE: Established 1987
Conservation International initiates projects and secures funding to promote biodiversity and protect endangered animal and plant species and vulnerable ecosystems, both terrestrial and aquatic, by sponsoring scientific research, educational programs, and publications. This nonprofit organization urges Indigenous peoples, governments, and businesses to incorporate environmentally compatible actions when interacting with natural resources.
Background
In February 1987, several Nature Conservancy leaders, including Peter A. Seligmann, decided to establish Conservation International (CI) to introduce innovative conservation programs based on scientific investigations that concentrated on biodiversity. In 1989, Seligmann became CI’s chief financial officer, and Russell A. Mittermeier succeeded him as president, remaining in that position into the twenty-first century. CI’s headquarters are located in Arlington, Virginia.
Impact on Resource Use
Protecting biodiversity shapes all CI’s endeavors. CI emphasizes that nature is essential to humans but that economic and political agendas often cause imbalances in nature and destruction of natural resources. CI’s Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) involves scientific teams surveying a specific country’s ecosystems. Their reports assist each country’s government leaders, conservationists, and researchers to determine how to protect vulnerable natural resources. RAP work has aided in the creation of national parks and has helped officials stop unlawful oil drilling. With projects in approximately forty-five countries, CI maintains field offices in five divisions: South America; Africa and Madagascar; East and Southeast Asia; Mexico and Central America; and Indonesia-Pacific.
CI scientists identify sites that CI refers to as “biodiversity hot spots” because those places are endangered by damaging situations, depleted resources, and threatened unique species. By 2024, CI had designated thirty-four biodiversity hot spots, noting that those places represented 2.3 percent of the Earth. CI created Conservation Priority-Setting Workshops to devise effective conservation strategies to advance in hot-spot communities. CI’s Debt-for-Nature program secures rights to protect endangered sites in trade for financial assistance. In the last thirty years, CI estimated it had protected a total of approximately 6 million square kilometers (2.3 square kilometers) of land, an area twice the size of India.
CI’s Center for Applied Biodiversity Science (CABS) and Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) Network endeavor to save valuable ecosystems from destruction by human activities. CI scientists conducted pioneering biodiversity studies of coral reefs and reptiles in 2007. They discovered previously unknown species of plants, frogs, geckos, and jumping spiders. In 2008, CI scientists participated in a global mammal survey that determined that more than one-half of primates are at risk of extinction. CI took part in a 2022 study showing that conserving 30 percent of Earth's land and 24 percent of its oceans would directly support the livelihoods of more than six million people. The organization conducted the largest study to date in 2023 to discover which factors had the greatest impact on forests: socio-economic, cultural, regulatory, or environmental. The study cast doubt on the findings of 320 peer-reviewed studies conducted and published up to 2019.
CI recognizes that change threatens biodiversity and therefore implements programs, such as tree planting, to counter deforestation. CI estimated this work decreases greenhouse gas emissions by about 1 to 2 billion metric tons annually. The Mantadia Conservation Carbon Project in Madagascar protected 450,000 rainforest hectares, which absorb 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
By providing educational opportunities and employment incentives, CI encourages Indigenous people living in fragile ecosystems to practice conservation. CI helped Kayapó Indians in Brazil protect more than 11 million hectares from loggers. CI also endorses ecotourism to generate income and biodiversity awareness.
CI publications include the RAP Bulletin of Biological Assessment, volumes in the CI Tropical Field Guide series, and pocket guides. Significant CI-sponsored books are Megadiversity: Earth’s Biologically Wealthiest Nations (1997), Hotspots: Earth’s Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions (1999), Wilderness: Earth’s Last Wild Places (2002), Hotspots Revisited (2004), A Rapid Biological Assessment of North Lorma, Gola, and Grebo National Forests, Liberia (2008), A Rapid Marine Biological Assessment (2013), and A Geography of Hope: Saving the Last Primary Forests (2016).
Bibliography
"How to Best Halt and Reverse Deforestation? Largest Study of Its Kind Finds Answers..." Conservation International, 16 Aug. 2023, www.conservation.org/press-releases/2023/08/16/how-to-best-halt-and-reverse-deforestation-largest-study-of-its-kind-finds-answers. Accessed 23 Dec. 2024.
McCoy, Mary Kate. "'I Almost Couldn't Believe It': Amazon Expedition Stuns Researchers." Conservation International, 20 Dec. 2024, www.conservation.org/blog/i-almost-couldnt-believe-it-amazon-expedition-stuns-researchers. Accessed 23 Dec. 2024.
"2024 Impact Report." Conservation International, www.conservation.org/2024-impact-report. Accessed 23 Dec. 2024.