Saving Nature, founded by Dr. Stuart Pimm, has developed a unique approach for leveraging local conservation action to solve global environmental challenges. Pimm’s vision is to make the right investments in conservation to maximize success. To do so, we use science to drive our programs, seek peer review from experts, and develop capacity in local organisations to carry out the work.
1. Focus on Biodiversity Hotspots
Saving Nature focuses on nature in crisis in biodiversity hotspots. By and large, we work in the tropics, where poverty and environmental destruction converge, driving species extinctions and hardship for local communities. From there, we acquire and restore habitat to secure a sustainable future for threatened species and the planet.
2. Protect Strategic Parcels of Land
The next important step in our conservation model is to protect strategic parcels of land for conservation. Without the full assurance of ownership, there is always a risk of encroachment by agriculture, timber extraction, linear development, mining, and other environmental destruction.
3. Build Resiliency with Native Plants
Also critical is restoring the habitat with native plants is essential to reversing the damage from deforestation. This work builds ecosystem resiliency against invasive species and increases the resources that endemic and threatened species need to rebound and reach viable population numbers.
4. Measure Results
Lastly, ongoing project monitoring documents the results and provides scientific evidence that can be applied elsewhere. Without follow-up on key performance indicators, it is impossible to understand what is working and where adjustments are needed. For this reason, the team at Saving Nature monitors projects with drones and camera traps to validate our results.
Conservation Partnerships
Importantly, Saving Nature works with local non-governmental organizations, young scientists, and the scientific community. Through this collaboration, we develop fresh insights and best practices for monitoring, modeling, and sharing front-line lessons. Our goal is to improve the knowledge base for restoring habitat, recolonizing species, and protecting ecosystem services for local communities. Therefore, we don’t own any land. Instead we raise money to help our local partners buy and restore land.
The video below highlights our philosophy of local conservation and rural empowerment, with local people engaged in the restoration of their natural heritage and future legacy.
Share Know-How
Lastly, we are working to improve the knowledge base for conservation. We believe that by openly propagating science and knowledge, any insights gained can be amplified. In doing so, we can have impact far beyond the projects in which we are directly involved. Ultimately, we hope our science, monitoring, and modelling contribute meaningfully to conservation best practices on a global scale.
Success Stories
Over the years of working in biodiversity hotspots, we have first-hand evidence that our conservation model for creating and restoring connections between larger protected areas reverses the extinction dynamics of habitat fragmentation.
Our project in the Atlantic Coastal Forest of Brazil is a great success story and a testament that nature can recover. Having started the work of habitat restoration in 2008, we have since witnessed the return of the golden lion tamarin, after almost total extinction from the wild in the 1980’s.
We repeated our success in the Northern Andes. After working with local conservation groups there, puma have once again been seen moving through previously degraded areas.