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transforming the landscape of biodiversity conservation

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The Cambridge Conservation Initiative is an

extraordinary marriage between outstanding

practical conservationists and inspiring

intellectual thinkers which will shape the

future of life on Earth. There is nothing more

important in the world today than what you

are doing here.

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Biodiversity Matters

Biodiversity comprises the genes, species and ecosystems that make up life on Earth. It is fascinating, beautiful and of enormous intrinsic value; it enriches our lives. Biodiversity also underpins ecosystem services on which we depend: ranging from food, water and medicines to crucial processes such as pollination, soil formation, climate regulation and resilience to environmental change.

Biodiversity is our life support system, vital

for the maintenance of healthy ecosystems.

CCI has an important role to play in moving

biodiversity to the heart of decision making.

Professor Jon HuttonDirector, UNEP-WCMC

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Who We Are

The Cambridge Conservation Initiative is a unique collaboration between the University of Cambridge and leading internationally focused biodiversity conservation organisations clustered in and around Cambridge, UK.

Founding organisations:

The University of Cambridge demonstrates its commitment to conservation through the designation of CCI as one of eight Strategic Research Initiatives. It brings together a critical mass of expertise from across its Schools, Faculties and Departments to build research capacity and partnerships. Six University Departments are founders of CCI - Zoology, Geography, Plant Sciences, Land Economy, Judge Business School and Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership. The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) is the specialist biodiversity assessment arm of UNEP, the world’s foremost intergovernmental environmental organisation. The Centre delivers scientific analyses to the UN, multilateral environmental agreements, national governments, organizations and companies.

Fauna & Flora International (FFI) acts to conserve threatened species and ecosystems worldwide, delivering global and regional programmes of conservation and community projects.

BirdLife International is a strategic global partnership of conservation organisations in over 100 countries, working to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, and to promote sustainability in the use of natural resources.

TRAFFIC is a global wildlife trade monitoring network that works to ensure that trade in wild plants and animals is not a threat to the conservation of nature. It is a global network, research-driven and action-oriented, committed to delivering innovative and practical conservation solutions.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) speaks out for birds and wildlife, tackling the problems that threaten our environment. It is the largest wildlife conservation organisation in Europe. It works to secure the conservation of wildlife through research, education, habitat management and advocacy.

Tropical Biology Association is dedicated to building the capacity and expertise of people and institutions to conserve and manage biodiversity in tropical regions. Its network spans 40 countries.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network. It supports scientific research and field projects, and brings governments, NGOs, the UN, international conventions and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice.

British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) is an independent scientific research trust specialising in impartial evidence-based knowledge and advice about populations, movements and ecology of birds and other wildlife.

Cambridge Conservation Forum (CCF) is a network that links the diverse Cambridge-based community of conservation practitioners and researchers working at local, national and international levels.

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CCI seeks to transform the global understanding and conservation of biodiversity and thus to secure a sustainable future for all life on Earth. Our unique partnership adds value to worldwide conservation efforts by uniting a critical mass of skills and expertise in research, education, policy, practice and capacity building. Working beyond organisational boundaries, we have the global convening power to amplify and deliver conservation action where it is most needed.

Our Conservation Campus in Cambridge will bring together the staff and individual strengths of CCI partners, and provide a dynamic working environment and ideas space for responding to the major opportunities and challenges in global biodiversity conservation.

Our VisionTo secure a sustainable future for biodiversity and society

CCI is a powerful catalyst. Embracing

students as well as established practitioners and

academics, the genius of CCI is its innovative

way of integrating research, policy, and action

in one of the world’s greatest, ideas-rich

environments.

Professor Dame Alison RichardChair, CCI Advisory Board and Vice-Chancellor Emerita,

University of Cambridge

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A Dynamic Conservation Cluster

Cambridge is home to the largest geographical cluster of biodiversity conservation organisations in the world. At its centre is the University of Cambridge, globally renowned for its conservation research and teaching across a wide range of disciplines. CCI harnesses the strengths of each partner and uses multidisciplinary approaches that cannot be achieved by any one organisation alone. CCI feeds new thinking and training into worldwide conservation practice and policy through the partner conservation organisations and their networks. In turn, the experience, knowledge and information from on-the-ground implementation of policy and practice is fed back into research and teaching.

FAUNA & FLORA

INTERNATIONAL

BTO

IUCN

RSPB

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FFIC

BIRDLIFEINTERNATIONAL

TRO

PICA

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BIO

LOG

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ASS

OCI

ATIO

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UNEP-WCME

CAMBRIDGE CONSERVATION FORUMUNIVERSITY OF

CAMBRIDGE

Collaboration between organisations and institutions which are linked to a common

cause has the potential to unleash synergies, spur innovation and generate

novel approaches to conservation. This in turn delivers stronger and better conservation solutions for the world’s biodiversity and the natural capital it

provides.

Dr Mike RandsCambridge Conservation Initiative

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RELATED GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Population growthFood and water security

Sustainable developmentHuman health

Energy

OUR STAKEHOLDERS

GovernmentsNon-governmental organisationsInter-governmental organisations

Private sectorCivil societyAcademia

THE KINDS OF ACTIONS WE TAKE

Capacity building Scenario modelling

Linking business and biodiversityCitizen science

Horizon scanningCollating conservation evidence

Catalysing collaborationsIntegrating research, policy and practice

Developing innovative conservation solutionsLeadership development

Strategic planningInterdisciplinary researchDeveloping best practice

Policy developmentSeed funding

Public engagementImproving environmental legislation

Changing human behaviour

SOME OF THE ISSUES WE ADDRESS

SustainabilityEnvironmental governance

Green economicsManaging natural capital

Costs and benefits of conservationBiodiversity indicators

Poverty alleviationDrivers of ecosystem change

Trade-offsEnvironmental ethicsResilience and risks

Payments for ecosystem servicesClimate change adaptation

EXAMPLES OF OUR PROJECTS

Reconnecting people and natureCreating linked indicators

Tools for developing NGO capacityRemote sensing and conservation

REDD+ implementation and legal barriersLinkages between biodiversity and poverty

Soil carbon managementClimate change impacts on biodiversityNew technologies to aid conservation

Identifying gaps in protecting world biodiversityConservation impacts of geoengineering

Gaming and nature conservationCosting conservation targets

Biodiversity offsettingReviewing renewable energy production

Ecosystem based approaches to climate change adaptationSupporting the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform

on Biodiversity & ecosystem services (IPBES)Supporting the Biodiversity Convention

Reducing carbon footprintsDynamics of ecosystem services

Ecosystem service toolkitsFarming for wild nature

Assessing bio-energyInterrogating ecosystem service dynamics

Do Protected Areas work?

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Our Strategy

As a collaboration between partner organisations, CCI aims to:

Increase the effectiveness of conservation actions by catalysing innovative and interdisciplinary collaborations that deliver sustainable solutions for natural resource managementEnhance global conservation leadership and knowledge exchange through capacity building, training and networkingDevelop new thinking, ideas, tools and techniques to improve and integrate conservation practice, policy and researchCreate a momentum to draw in others to respond rapidly and effectively to the major biodiversity conservation challengesEstablish a distinct internationally renowned centre of excellence for conservation with global convening power, fostering collaboration beyond organisational and disciplinary boundaries

CCI is a pioneering strategic collaboration

between the University and our remarkable

conservation partners established to tackle one

of the world’s most pressing challenges – the

conservation and sustainable management of

living natural resources. I am delighted CCI

was designated one of the first University

Strategic Research Initiatives, reflecting our

strengths in the study of biodiversity, the

commitment to scale-up our research efforts

and the determination of our academic staff

to collaborate in the delivery of practical

conservation solutions.

Professor Sir Leszek BorysiewiczVice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge

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Over-arching Themes

As a global partnership, CCI has a rich and diverse body of knowledge and expertise. As a collaboration between organisations, we have developed our strategic direction by focusing on issues where synergies among partners can add significant value. Global environmental challenges are massive, requiring concerted and complementary action; we catalyse a growing number of people, organisations and networks that are seeking to improve sustainability.

CCI partners work across the full range of biodiversity and conservation challenges, but our distinct contribution comes from the unique wealth of data, knowledge, analysis and practical field experience held by the partners.

Since it was created in 2007, CCI has developed five interconnected themes:

The values (economic, social, cultural, biological, intrinsic) of biodiversity and ecosystemsPutting those values to work for society: biodiversity conservation and human needs Identifying, measuring and combating the drivers and processes of biodiversity loss Addressing climate change and biodiversity conservationDetecting and measuring success: developing indicators, monitoring and effectiveness

The CCI partnership provides a unique

challenge and opportunity for Cambridge

to develop a distinctive and world leading

programme of research on biodiversity

conservation and its impacts, and truly

cuts across disciplinary and organisational

boundaries. This collaboration has the

potential to deliver a new paradigm for

socially-engaged research in the twenty first

century.

Dr Bhaskar ViraDepartment of Geography, University of Cambridge

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CCI has Global Reach

Together, CCI partners have an active presence for the benefit of biodiversity in over 180 nations, with the greatest concentration of activity in places richest in living natural resources. In many cases these organisations act as central hubs for global networks comprising local and national conservation groups (including individuals, community groups, government representatives and NGOs). Our partnership therefore fosters, delivers and supports thousands of practical field-based actions for the conservation of biodiversity.

Individual partners play a major part in helping to create, shape and improve policies that impact on the environment and wider sustainability. Our organisations are rich in data and experience, have immense global reach and influence, and are strongly committed to delivering evidence-based solutions and building local conservation capacity.

Through its collaborating

organisations, the Cambridge

Conservation Initiative reaches

out to an extensive global

network of conservation

practitioners that ground its

work in the harsh reality of

changing conservation practice.

Rosalind AvelingDeputy Chief Executive, Fauna & Flora

International

What emerged most forcefully from my placement was

the similarity of conservation problems globally and the

opportunities for learning from each other. I am now

back home in East Africa working for Fauna & Flora

International managing the marine programme which covers

Kenya and Tanzania. I am applying the experiences from my

placement which focused on marine resource governance

and what I have learnt on the MPhil in Conservation

Leadership programme in Cambridge to tackle major

conservation challenges such as unsustainable resource use,

the impacts of climate change, poverty and poor governance.

Joy JumaMPhil student from Kenya

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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

The number of CCI partners with an active presence

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CCI in Numbers

CCI partners employ around 3000 conservation professionals in more than 180 countries.

Over £200 million is spent by CCI partners on biodiversity conservation every year.

60 new collaborations have been initiated between CCI partners since 2007 involving 330 people from 42 organisations and university departments around the world.

50 open access resources have resulted from CCI collaborations: Comprising 28% peer-reviewed publications, 18% policy briefs, 18% working papers and reports, 18% workshop proceedings, 8% new web-based resources and 10% other materials.

Over £14 million has been rasied for CCI collaborations since 2009.

22 innovative new collaborative projects have been seeded by £1 million of CCI funding since 2008.

The number of peer-reviewed conservation papers published by researchers has tripled to over 110 per year since CCI was created.

2000 graduate students from 117 countries have participated in the Student Conference in Conservation Science in Cambridge and 4 sister conferences have been

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established in India, the United States, Australia and China.41 students from 29 nations have taken the MPhil in Conservation Leadership since its inception in 2010. Students are taught by over 60 lecturers from 18 University Departments and conservation organisations.

32 speakers have addressed audiences of up to 140 students, University researchers and conservation practitioners in the new Cambridge Conservation Seminar Series established in 2011.

Horizon-scanning exercises have brought together more than 350 participants from over 250 universities, government, businesses and conservation organisations across all continents to identify emerging issues and help set agenda for biodiversity conservation. The results have been published in 20 peer-reviewed articles.

National and local conservation organisations require

institutional capacity in conservation leadership and

systemic organisation. Benefiting from alliances built

between the conservation leadership programmes associated

with CCI, our truly collaborative project has allowed us

to evolve low-cost innovative ways of providing sustained

support for organisational development. We are currently

producing a mentoring framework and best practice

resources for self-guided use and measurement of progress

Dr Hazell Shokellu ThompsonBirdLife International

CCI offers a unique opportunity for collaboration between

the University of Cambridge and its NGO conservation

partners. We are highlighting the critical role of business

and policy leadership in responding to natural capital and

conservation issues.

Polly CourticeDirector, University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability

Leadership

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CCI in Action

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Building Capacity and Leadership

The CCI partners have created and supported a distinctive multidisciplinary Masters course in Conservation Leadership as part of CCI’s Learning and Leadership Programme. The course targets the conservation leaders of tomorrow who have already gained considerable conservation experience in their home countries.

This unique course started in October 2010, is hosted in the Department of Geography in the University of Cambridge and draws on the research and practical expertise of all the CCI partners. The course focuses on skills in professional management and leadership, while providing participants with first-hand exposure to conservation leadership challenges in the real world.

CCI’s Learning and Leadership Programmes are

enriched by the opportunity to bring conservation

practitioners together in the classroom with students

from around the world. Each class has a distinctive

character, but all have been diverse with the majority

of students from biodiversity-rich countries. Students

who graduate from the course are gaining significant

jobs in conservation.

Professor Nigel Leader-WilliamsDirector, Conservation Leadership, Department of Geography,

University of Cambridge

After attending the course,

I now feel that if I am

put at the helm of a large

conservation organization

I can succeed in delivering

because I now understand

the challenges that come

with a leadership position.

Godfrey MtareMPhil student from Zimbabwe

The MPhil in Conservation Leadership

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Student Conferences in Conservation Science (SCCS)

CCI is helping four series of Student Conferences in Conservation Science (SCCS) to grow and expand their reach by fundraising, networking and by providing institutional support and guidance. SCCS is the only international series of conservation science conferences aimed entirely at graduate students. Through its activities, it aims to strengthen the careers of young conservation scientists across the world.

Beginning in Cambridge in 2000, it has stimulated the creation of annual sister conferences in Bangalore, Brisbane and New York. SCCS-Cambridge has expanded its scope over the years and now also provides internships and short courses for SCCS delegates from low- and middle-income countries. The Student Conference in Cambridge has now hosted over 2,000 delegates from 117 countries.

The training and lessons learnt during my

professional placement with CCI were both

enabling and practical, and this has been an

important step in the leadership learning curve

of my career.

Vena KapoorMPhil student from India

The contacts and training that SCCS provides

to early career conservation scientists helps

them to do their science better. Links made

among the student delegates and between them

and conservation practitioners they met at

the conference have endured and led to many

fruitful collaborations.

Dr Rosie TrevelyanDirector, Tropical Biology Association

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Conservation Futures

Horizon scanning is the systematic search for, and examination of, potential threats, opportunities and developments that are not widely recognised. It is the first step in identifying, analysing and communicating hypotheses or insights about the future. Horizon scanning is vital for the future of biodiversity conservation because it allows us to alert decision - makers to issues they may not be aware of, and the often unintended consequences of policy actions.

CCI’s horizon scanning brings together a broad range of stakeholders from business, government, academia and NGOs to inform diverse processes related to policy, risk assessment, strategic planning and innovation. This exercise has had a good track record in identifying unforseen issues and is widely used by a range of policy-making bodies. Other exercises bring together a wide range of policy makers, practitioners, businesses and academics to set the agenda for research and action in a range of areas.

Costing Conservation Targets

In order to achieve ambitious global biodiversity conservation targets by 2020, there needs to be a rapid and substantial scaling up of conservation financing. However, a lack of information regarding the scale of current spending in relation to unmet needs is a major impediment to securing the necessary mobilization of financial resources.

One of our collaborative projects addressed this gap by assessing, for the first time, what the costs would be of preventing global extinctions and safeguarding a network of key sites for biodiversity.

The collaborative project has had direct conservation relevance by demonstrating to the world’s governments that current conservation funding is at least an order of magnitude below the total funding required and that relative funding needs are greatest in lower-income countries.

I believe that a forward-thinking shift in focus

has an enormous role to play in conservation.

Identifying and publicising important potential

issues early on will better prepare us for future

environmental challenges and the active

participation of CCI partners in these exercises

makes it a truly collaborative programme.

Professor William SutherlandDepartment of Zoology, University of Cambridge

Catalysing Collaboration

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Linking People, Livelihoods and Biodiversity

The rural poor depend more than anyone else on biodiversity yet little analysis has been carried out to show whether and how biodiversity conservation efforts improve their livelihoods. One of our collaborations has brought together social scientists, biologists and conservation practitioners in the Gola Forest, Sierra Leone.

The project has conducted a series of quantitative evaluations and behavioural experiments using tested economic concepts and models to investigate the impacts (both positive and negative) of conservation interventions on the livelihoods of local communities. The results show the importance of putting in place appropriate environmental governance mechanisms and of providing specific recommendations for the design of REDD+ agreements and contracts to ensure that local livelihoods improve alongside biodiversity as a result of the conservation measures implemented.

This collaboration, which involved multiple

institutions and disciplines, and was facilitated

and funded by CCI, fed directly into the

discussions among governments about the

finances needed to implement the CBD Strategic

Plan for Biodiversity up to 2020.

Donal McCarthyEconomist, Conservation Policy, RSPB

Dr Andreas KontoleonDepartment of Land Economy, University of Cambridge

This CCI project not only reinforces the

importance of integrating the needs and

livelihoods of local communities with

biodiversity conservation efforts as a key

element for sustainable conservation solutions,

but has also successfully developed a framework

in order to test and address this gap.

A CCI policy brief presented to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has been instrumental in persuading developed nations to double their support for biodiversity conservation efforts in developing countries to US$10 billion per annum by 2015.

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Building Practical and Rapid Assessment Tools for Conservation

Ecosystem services are essential for human well-being and survival, and this is increasingly being used as an argument for conserving biodiversity and habitats throughout the world.

A CCI collaboration has devised an innovative methodology for quantifying the ecosystem services provided by various elements of biodiversity, and tested it on the ground at specific conservation sites in Nepal, Montserrat and the UK. The project has developed an ecosystem services ‘toolkit’ that measures multiple services delivered by a site. The toolkit enables users to measure the added value that high biodiversity sites often provide in terms of human well-being benefits, at the local, national or global scale. The toolkit promotes a better understanding of the social, political and economic factors related to site conservation and what could be done to achieve better outcomes for both biodiversity and human livelihoods.

This collaboration has now extended to building capacity in 10 African countries and evaluating the differential distribution of services and impacts on people in varied socio-economic circumstances.

Assessing ecosystem services can support

advocacy for the conservation of individual

sites or for their restoration. Monitoring levels

of ecosystem services over time will also help

guide better management and can further

support arguments for conservation.

Dr Kelvin PehDepartment of Zoology, University of Cambridge

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Biodiversity Loss and Climate Change

Two of the greatest threats to our planet are biodiversity loss and climate change, and the mitigation and adaptation measures for both can be mutually beneficial. A series of CCI collaborations has sought to address these challenges together. A multidisciplinary analysis of the key mechanisms underpinning climate change impacts on biodiversity is currently being conducted to quantify and appraise the relative importance of different mechanisms on different taxa, habitats and geographic regions.

A review of the effectiveness of ecosystem-based approaches (EBAs) to climate change adaptation revealed several highly effective EBAs that should be incorporated into climate change policy mechanisms.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) has become an important part of international climate change policy and is increasingly described as a mechanism that will conserve forest biodiversity and alleviate poverty as well as storing and

sequestering carbon. Several CCI projects are investigating the likely impacts of REDD+ on biodiversity and society by:

establishing realistic baseline emission rates for REDD+ schemes;identifying how to remove legal barriers to effective implementation of REDD+; integrating socio-economic factors into REDD+ mechanisms; and identifying and testing cost-effective remote sensing applications to measure carbon, forest structure, dynamics and levels of disturbance, and the likely impacts for wildlife conservation.

There are few REDD+ schemes being initiated

which can rely on rich socio-economic baseline

data and learning on how best to improve

livelihoods and conservation. An innovative

CCI collaborative project to address this in and

around the Gola National Park in Sierra Leone

has therefore been timely and was an excellent

opportunity to expand the scientific knowledge

in this field of research.

Beccy WileborePhD student, Department of Plant Sciences,

University of Cambridge

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A CCI catalysed and funded project is allowing

us to prepare and produce numerous teaching

materials that will help build capacity to link

biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and

climate change

M.A. Kiragu MwangiConservation Leadership Programme, BirdLife International

Building on the international conservation

experience of the CCI partners, we were uniquely

placed to produce a multi-taxa assessment of

climate change impact mechanisms from around

the globe to deliver high quality and policy-

relevant scientific review outputs. These open-

access outputs will help develop the response of

conservation organisations to climate change.

Dr James Pearce-HigginsPrincipal climate change ecologist, British Trust for Ornithology

Recent open access resources from CCI collaborations

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Looking to the Future

Since its foundation in 2007, CCI has fostered a growing number of collaborations resulting in novel approaches and solutions for biodiversity conservation. By bringing different disciplines to bear on conservation, and by facilitating different actors to work together, we are strengthening policy for conservation, improving conservation practice, and developing capacity and leadership.

CCI is a partnership between organisations, not an organisation in itself. My role is to catalyze the partners to achieve more by working together than when working alone – the whole must be greater than the sum of the parts if we are to deliver CCI’s ambition of transforming the global understanding and conservation of biodiversity.

The creation of a Conservation Campus in the centre of Cambridge will drive a massive step change in our

collaborations and in our worldwide impacts. Co-location, sharing facilities and services, and a highly visible manifestation of our aims and activities will amplify our influence. The Campus will enhance our convening power and ability to engage new audiences worldwide while offering an attractive and stimulating environment for others to work with us.

I hope and believe the Campus, as the hub of an extraordinary cluster of conservation institutions and people, will play a major and dynamic role in advancing global biodiversity conservation, and perhaps offer a new model for conservation collaborations elsewhere.

Dr Mike RandsDirector, Cambridge Conservation Initiative

The Conservation Campus in central Cambridge will be

a major step forward in advancing our efforts as part of

the global conservation movement, providing the physical

space and opportunity to mix with an enormous array of

players, form partnerships, and generate new ideas and

approaches to preserving our planet’s valuable biodiversity.

Julia Marton-LefèvreDirector General, International Union for the Conservation of Nature

The enormous pressures that the

world faces in this century means

there are a number of stark

challenges for conservation. This

type of collaboration is essential if

these challenge are to be met.

Professor Sir John Beddington CMG, FRSChief Scientific Adviser to HM Government

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A Conservation Campus in Cambridge

The CCI Conservation Campus will bring together over 500 professional conservationists spanning research, policy and practice and covering a wide range of disciplines and professions.

In addition to housing CCI partners, the campus will offer working spaces and facilities for a variety of collaborations, including: 1) policy makers and business leaders from all over the world; 2) visiting researchers; and 3) conservations practitioners. The campus designs will foster a rich, intellectually stimulating working environment that embeds our collaborative vision throughout the programmes, culture and day-to-day working of the partners. The refurbishment of a fine example of 1960’s architectural brutalism will demonstrate the highest levels of environmental sustainability and be an exemplar of how to enrich and conserve biodiversity in an urban setting. The experimental planting design for the green roofs and walls will reflect the original use of the site in the 18th century as the University’s first Botanical Garden where herbaceous plants were grown for teaching medical students.

See an architect’s fly-through of the proposed Campus here

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Fostering Collaboration in the Campus

The Campus will provide a series of shared spaces, facilities and services for CCI partners and the global conservation community specifically designed to foster effective collaboration. This will include the latest communications technologies and meeting facilities to enhance the dissemination of knowledge and generation of new ideas, while reducing travel costs and our carbon footprint. The podium between CCI and the Museum of Zoology will house a lively café, providing a meeting and eating venue for CCI and the wider community. The meeting spaces, including access to 450-seat lecture theatre within the building, will be used promote the wonders and values of biodiversity to people, champion conservation innovations and solutions, and promote new debate and thinking in sustainable living.

The world’s biodiversity urgently needs research-

driven, innovative and practical solutions for

its conservation. By coming together on the

Conservation Campus, CCI partners will be better

able to integrate their distinct and complementary

strengths to tackle the complex challenges facing

the natural world in exciting new ways.

Steven BroadExecutive Director, TRAFFIC

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Establishing A World Class Conservation Resource Centre

By providing access to the published and unpublished literature and records, electronic data holdings and photographic images of CCI partners from one professionally staffed centre, the Campus will create a world class conservation library. Linked to the Cambridge University Library, the CCI library will be for scholars, students, practitioners and policy experts, offering electronic access as well as a unique environment in which to explore and study a rich and unparalleled body of conservation information and material.

To scale up and catalyse collaborative research activity, the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute will develop an expanding programme of cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary and cross-departmental conservation related research, as a key hub for CCI within the University.

CCI brings together Cambridge University, an

acknowledged world-leader in scientific research, and

numerous leading civil environmental organisations from

the Cambridge area. This creates a critical mass capable,

with economy of effort, of exerting real influence on world

conservation research, on knowledge dissemination and

action.

Anastasios Paul LeventisCCI Advisory Board and the A G Leventis Foundation

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Working in Partnership with the Museum of Zoology

CCI will be co-located with the University’s Museum of Zoology, an internationally important collection for research and teaching. This will provide an ideal environment in which to demonstrate the value of science and the fragility, complexity and relevance of biodiversity to society. Together with the Museum, we are creating an innovative, interactive conservation gallery. This will foster the public understanding of biodiversity and the need for its conservation, as well as showcasing the work of CCI partners. We will jointly host ‘artists in residence’, including writers, musicians and visual artists, who will work alongside researchers and practitioners to interpret their work in new ways.

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Being co-located with CCI will ensure that our

growing audience fully appreciates the need

to conserve biodiversity for future generations

and the value of our superb collections.

Professor Paul BrakefieldDirector, Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge

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Enormous thanks

CCI is deeply indebted to its Advisory Board: Professor Dame Alison Richard (Chair), Professor Sir John Beddington, Robert Devereux, Jeremy Grantham, André Hoffmann, Dr Lisbet Rausing, Anastasios (Tasso) Leventis and James Wilson for their inspiration and strategic guidance. We thank the CCI collaborative fund selection panel, Professor Ian Newton (Chair), Anthea Case, and Professor Lynn Gladden for their professionalism and scrupulous screening.

The creation and development of CCI and its plans for a Conservation Campus would not have been possible without the generous support of: Arcadia, MAVA Fondation pour la Nature and the A.G. Leventis Foundation.

We are also most grateful for the financial support received for CCI programmes and projects from:John Ellerman Foundation, Isaac Newton Trust, Paul and Louise Cooke Endowment, Robert Sansom, William Kendal, Microsoft Research, Natural Environment Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (UK), Department for International Development (UK), Darwin Initiative, Ecosystems Services for Poverty Alleviation (NERC-ESRC-DFID – UK), Natural England, University of Cambridge, BirdLife International, RSPB, FFI, BTO, IUCN, TRAFFIC, Tropical Biology Association, Cambridge Conservation Forum and UNEP-WCMC.

This brochure has been prepared by Mike Rands, Vena Kapoor and Lisa Harris and designed by Matt Bilton. We thank Roz Almond, Paul Brakefield, Emily Chenery, Ravinder Dhillon, Rhys Green, Graham Jenkins, Nigel Leader-Williams, Stephanie Prior, Gill Rands, Bill Sutherland, Bhaksar Vira, and Louise Walsh for input to the text.

I support CCI because it aims to enable the

emergence of innovative and potentially game-

changing tools and approaches to tackle global

conservation challenges by bringing together

multidisciplinary teams of dedicated and

international conservation leaders and their

networks.

André HoffmannChair of the MAVA Fondation pour la Nature

IMAGE CREDITS

Front cover and Pages 1, 6, 7, 10, 11, 16, 18, 19: Kalyan VarmaFront inner image of David Attenborough: Alistair FothergillPage 3: CCI Logo – TBA (left and middle) and BirdLife International(right)Pages 12: Extreme left upper, Jeremy Holden/FFI; extreme left middle and extreme right lower, Ben Watkins; extreme left lower, © Yanchen Lin; middle upper, Ana Rodriguez; lower middle and extreme right middle, Gola Forest ProgrammePage 13: Extreme left upper, Yoan Dinata; extreme left lower, David Tipling; extreme right, Bhaskar Vira; lower middle BirdLife International; extreme right middle, © Yanchen Lin; extreme right lower, Robin Kurien Abraham Page 14: Ngawang GyeltshenPage 15: © Yanchen LinPage 17: K. LeuveldPage 27: Museum of Zoology, University of CambridgePages 23, 24, 25, 26, 27: Nicholas Hare Architects. All images of the conservation campus are artist’s impressions.

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c/o Judge Business SchoolTrumpington StreetCambridgeCB2 1AGUnited KingdomTel: +44 (0)1223 330757

www.cambridgeconservation.org

The Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) is a unique collaboration between the University of Cambridge and leading internationally focussed biodiversity conservation organisations clustered in and around Cambridge, UK.