Cambridge Conservation Initiative
The global decline in wildlife is unprecedented, with one million species threatened with extinction. The Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) seeks to tackle this crisis by bringing together ten leading conservation organisations, including the RSPB, and the University of Cambridge. The CCI partners work together to halt wildlife declines and foster a future in which wildlife and people thrive.
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About the Cambridge Conservation Initiative
The CCI represents the world’s largest conservation hub. Based at the David Attenborough Centre in Cambridge, it brings together a global network of world-leading conservation organisations, with a wide-range of skills and knowledge. Drawing on expertise from research, education, policy and practical conservation, the CCI aims to find solutions to the many threats facing our natural world and to fast-track positive change towards a sustainable future.
The CCI partners
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Tackling the nature crisis
Nature is in crisis. Across the world we are experiencing a dangerous decline, with one million of the world’s estimated eight million species of plants and animals threatened with extinction. In the UK, much-loved birds, including Puffins, Turtle Doves and Swifts, have suffered huge declines and need ongoing conservation to safeguard their futures.
This decline in biodiversity has far-reaching consequences that ultimately puts people and communities at risk. Without healthy, balanced ecosystems, our food security is undermined, with more people at risk of hunger and poverty, and we face an increased risk of extreme weather events including floods and droughts, as well as a greater risk of disease.
CCI aims and ambitions
The CCI’s vision is for a diverse world in which nature and society thrive.
Working together, the CCI partners are determined to tackle the nature crisis and to deliver practical action that will halt wildlife declines and secure a better future for nature and people.
By working collaboratively, the CCI partners aim to address major conservation issues and create conservation solutions, highlight new challenges and opportunities and deliver new ways of integrating conservation research, policy and practical action. To do so the CCI works in four key areas:
Science and research
The CCI carries out research to understand conservation problems, research to understand conservation problems, identify the causes, work towards solutions and act upon the science, with the RSPB’s Centre for Conservation Science a key contributor to this effort.
Conservation practice
The CCI works globally to deliver practical action to halt wildlife declines, restore habitats and secure a more sustainable future.
Policy and advocacy
The CCI’s strong convening power allows us to directly engage with a wide audience globally, from leaders in government, business, academic and NGO communities, to the general public.
Capacity building
The CCI is committed to providing world-class learning and leadership opportunities to support future conservation professionals.
The impact of the CCI
Through the CCI, The RSPB joins forces with other expert organisations to find solutions to complex conservation problems. This enables a multi-disciplinary approach that could not be achieved by any one organisation alone. Project examples include:
Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative
The RSPB has been working in partnership with the Association for the Conservation of the Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, the Government of Kazakhstan, and other international partners to restore steppe, desert and wetland ecosystems throughout Kazakhstan as part of the CCI’s Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative.
Since the formation of the Initiative in 2006, Saiga Antelope populations in Kazakhstan have made a remarkable recovery from fewer than 50,000 in 2005 to over 1,300,000 in 2022.
The initiative has been recognised by the United Nations as one of only 10 World Restoration Flagships under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme
This Programme, funded by Arcadia and managed by CCI, aims to aims to restore landscapes and seascapes across Europe for the benefit of nature and people, building a healthier and more hopeful future. Through these landscape-scale initiatives, the CCI and many other partners are working to bring back lost species, restore habitats and foster healthy ecosystems. These initiatives will provide wider benefits, including clean air and water, fertile soil and flood protection, and health and wellbeing benefits for local communities.
There are 14 restoration programmes underway, including Cumbria Connect and Cairngorms Connect in the UK in both of which RSPB is a partner.
The RSPB is the lead partner for Cumbria Connect. This will see the restoration of 33,000 ha of English uplands, through large scale planting and natural regeneration, peatland restoration and the reestablishment of historic river systems. As well as benefiting rare species such as Hen Harriers and Water Voles, we are working to support local farmers, land managers and the wider community.
Cairngorms Connect is the biggest habitat restoration partnership in Britain and covers 60,000 ha of land within the Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands. It is an ambitious 200-year plan to restore native woodland, peatland and montane habitat to secure the future for threatened species including Red Squirrels and Capercaillie. The programme will also support local people through employment and through enhanced ecosystem services for local communities.
Rainforest Conservation in the Gola Landscape of Liberia and Sierra Leone
Innovative approaches for protecting the future of Gola Rainforest – globally important for its biodiversity and its carbon reserves – are being developed thanks to the CCI. The Greater Gola Landscape stretches across 350,000 ha of the Upper Guinean Forest straddling the border between Sierra Leone and Liberia. A globally important biodiversity hotspot, the rainforest is home to more than 60 threatened species, including the White-necked Picathartes and Pygmy Hippo. It also provides a range of ecosystem services supporting local and national resilience and adaptation to climate change. However, the region’s farmers are some of the poorest in the world. Most people living in the villages on the edge of the forest are subsistence farmers. Although cocoa is a vital crop, farmers are susceptible to fluctuating market prices.
We’re working with partners in the region to safeguard the area’s rich biodiversity, and to establish sustainable approaches to agroforestry that effectively balance the needs of people, nature and climate. In both countries, we share a common vision with partners to promote sustainable financing for forest conservation, biodiversity protection and sustainable livelihoods of about 55,000 people of the Landscape.
“CCI has proved that when you bring the right people together within a global initiative, remarkable things do happen.” - Sir David Attenborough, Honorary Patron, CCI