We know that COVID-19, and diseases like it, result from humanity’s exploitation of species. CPSG’s species conservation planning work changes the future for wildlife, helping to create a world where wild species can not only survive extinction but thrive together with humans. While it may not be the first need that comes to mind during a time of crisis like this, continued species conservation planning will be essential to efforts to repair the relationship between humans and wildlife and to achieve a healthy planet where we can all coexist.
Healing takes time. The first workshop led by CPSG to plan a future for the golden lion tamarin was held in 1990 when there were only a few hundred of these striking animals left in the wild. Through our unique blend of quantitative analysis and stakeholder facilitation, a population benchmark of 2,000 wild tamarins was identified as required for the species to survive. The tamarins have far exceeded that goal. As of 2018, there were just over 2,500 golden lion tamarins thriving in their native habitat.
Conservation works, when guided by planning
It’s a fact: conservation action works when guided by effective planning. A recent study (Lees et al., in prep) comparing the rate of species declines before and after CPSG intervention illustrates the powerful role of participatory, science-based planning as a turning point for threatened species. For the projects in the study, which spanned 23 countries and almost 20 years of planning, overall species declines slowed after the initial workshop and were reversed within fifteen years.
Catalyzing a species conservation planning revolution
In 2020, as we celebrated (albeit remotely) 40 years of planning for species both ex situ and in situ, we’re not only looking back, we are looking forward to leading a species conservation planning revolution that will rally supporters, amplify capacity development, enhance planning tools, and influence policy to meet the growing needs of threatened species, not just for wildlife, but for the health of this planet and its people.
- We have produced best practice guidance outlining the principles and steps for effective, implementable species conservation planning (link).
- We’ve added more training courses to our schedule, and we launched a Species Conservation Planners Development Path program to support a select group of conservationists over an 18-month period of training, coaching, and mentorship. As a result, we nearly doubled the number of species conservation planning workshops conducted in 2019.
- We’ve developed a new planning tool called Assess to Plan, or A2P, to support the rapid movement of large groups of threatened species from Red List assessment to conservation action, through planning. This is exponentially increasing the reach and impact of species conservation planning.
- We are connecting our work to global treaties and policy initiatives towards one coherent response to the current extinction crisis. In our effort to integrate species planning into global biodiversity policy, CPSG played a lead role in the drafting of IUCN’s Abu Dhabi Call for Global Species Conservation Action. This declaration—supported by more than 160 IUCN groups and 161 external organizations—is an urgent call to massively scale up species conservation action in response to the escalating biodiversity crisis and led to the development of the IUCN Global Species Action Plan to be considered by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
- We helped draft, and now serve as the SSC focal point for, IUCN resolution 079—Linking in situ and ex situ efforts to save threatened species—urging union-wide endorsement of CPSG’s One Plan Approach, the integrated conservation for a species both inside and outside its natural range, and under all conditions of management, engaging all responsible parties and all available resources from the very start of any species conservation planning initiative. The motion calls for conservation efforts to be proactive, timely and informed by the Guidelines on the Use of Ex situ Management for Species Conservation and recommends the establishment of a global network of biobanks dedicated to achieving global species conservation targets and support for the collection of standards-based animal records for in situ and ex situ populations and to support sharing of information, data analytics and research for the conservation of in situ and ex situ populations.
There is much more work to do for the over 31,000 species known to be threatened with extinction and to heal humanity’s relationship with wildlife. Our goal is to ensure that every species that needs a plan is covered by an effective, implemented plan of action for its survival. That’s why we’re catalyzing a species conservation planning revolution. We hope that you will be part of it.
About the author
Onnie earned her Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from the University of Minnesota and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo in Washington D.C. She was a member of the National Zoological Park's Mobile Laboratory Research team, and participated in reproductive studies involving cheetah, pumas, tigers and giant panda. Onnie joined the SSC’s Conservation Planning Specialist Group in 1991 as a Program Officer and was promoted to the position of Executive Director in 2005, and appointed Chair in 2011.
In addition to leading the organization, Onnie shares with CPSG’s Program Officers responsibility for organization, design and facilitation of a wide range of Species Conservation Planning and other CPSG workshops. Onnie is dedicated to the transfer of these tools and processes to conservationists around the world through the establishment and nurturing of CPSG's Regional Resource Centers and by assisting governments in the use of species conservation planning to reverse the decline in threatened species. Onnie serves on the SSC Steering Committee, the Amphibian Survival Alliance Global Council, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums Conservation and Sustainability Committee, and on the Boards of Species 360 and Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders (EWCL).
