Following a meeting of the CCI Collaborative Fund for Conservation Selection Panel, CCI is pleased to announce the projects chosen by the panel to receive funding from the Collaborative Fund in 2018.

Six innovative, collaborative conservation projects were chosen for funding. We are very grateful for the support of the donors which make the Collaborative Fund possible – Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, and also the Rothschild Foundation.

The full list of funded projects is below. In due course each of these projects will have its own dedicated page on the CCI website, where you will be able to read more about what the project intends to do and how, and keep up to date with project progress.

Science and policy to address threats to the Afro-Palearctic migratory birds: new research and future policy 

The decline in long-distance migrant landbird populations is an important, growing conservation concern. This has prompted much new targeted research but an overview and gap analysis is lacking. In this project, science and policy experts will review recent advances and identify future science, policy and practice priorities at the flyway scale.

Collaborators: RSPB, BTO, BirdLife International, University of Cambridge Department of Geography, Convention on Migratory Species, African-Eurasian Migrant Landbirds Action Plan (including the Migrant Landbird Study Group), Universities of St Andrews, Copenhagen, Groningen and East Anglia 

Identifying globally important sites for life on earth: scoping of Key Biodiversity Areas for vertebrates 

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are sites that are significant for the global persistence of biodiversity. This project will bring together CCI partners and collaborating parties to develop an assessment of potential terrestrial vertebrate KBA ‘trigger’ species and candidate sites to support KBA identification efforts being coordinated nationally in countries worldwide.

Collaborators: IUCN, BirdLife International, University of Cambridge Department of Zoology, RSPB , Wildlife Conservation Society, Amphibian Survival Alliance, Sapienza University, Milan University 

Improving engagement of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in sustainability standards and safeguards

Voluntary standards and safeguards are a key part of the transition towards sustainable production. While CSOs are important stakeholders in their development and implementation, barriers exist to effective engagement. This project draws on CCI experience to develop a platform to support CSO engagement and research into sustainability standards and safeguards.

Collaborators: FFI, BirdLife International, IUCN, RSPB, University of Cambridge Department of Geography (MPhil Programme), Zoological Society of London, Wildlife Conservation Society 

Citizen science for conservation in Africa (CISCA)

This project translates citizen science species monitoring into conservation action in Africa. We will do this through building the capacity of national conservation scientists to become more effective citizen science managers, to analyse their data and use the results to inform conservation strategies and policy.

Collaborators: TBA, BTO, University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, National Museums of Kenya, Kenya Bird Map Committee 

Embracing failure in conservation

Failure potentially breeds success, if lessons are learnt, but conservation failures are rarely discussed. This project will identify cases of failure from participating organisations, assess the reasons why conservation efforts fail, and bring partners together to discuss examples of failure and how learning from failure can best inform practice.

Collaborators: University of Cambridge Department of Zoology, BirdLife International, BTO, IUCN, FFI, TRAFFIC, UNEP-WCMC, RSPB, TBA 

The conceptual and practical options of governing natural capital under a ‘system operator’ 

The UK’s 25 Year Environment Plan sets out ambitious objectives, including the aim to move towards a ‘system operator’ responsible for strategic management of natural capital locally. This project will examine the conceptual underpinnings and practical options of this radical institutional innovation and explore its implications for conservation and society.

Collaborators: RSPB, University of Cambridge, Departments of Land Economy and Geography, UNEP-WCMC