About
The capacity issue
The number, magnitude and extent of environmental issues continues to grow around the world. The delivery of effective conservation outcomes requires individuals and well-led organisations with an incredibly diverse range of skills, knowledge, and information to meet future conservation challenges. The development and maintenance of such capacity however, is often very difficult for individuals and organisations to achieve. Given the growing number of environmental challenges in the next few decades, the conservation sector will need to ‘scale up’ its capacity building activities.
The capacity building conference series
The global Capacity Building for Conservation conference 2019 is the fourth in a series of international meetings aimed at tackling some of these difficult and pervasive issues. The conferences have been developed by Mark O’Connell (University of Gloucestershire) in partnership with a core committee of colleagues from national and international conservation organisations. Over 500 representatives from more than 300 organisations have attended the three conferences:

Colombia (South America region 2013)
You can download the declaration paper from the Colombia conference for more information.

Kenya (Africa region 2015)
You can download the paper from the African conference for more information.

India (Asia region 2017)
Capacity building for Conservation in Asia
The global capacity conference
The global meeting provides a unique opportunity for discussion and problem-solving amongst the international conservation capacity community. The proceedings will be published as a special edition of the International Journal of Conservation (ORYX). The meeting will also be filmed (archive material on the website) and key presentations live-streamed. A series of guides will be published after the conference in relation to the core capacity building areas covered by the meeting. The primary conference language will be English, but we hope to be able to also offer translation into French (details to follow).
Organisers & Hosts
The conference is being organised by Mark O’Connell from the University of Gloucestershire and hosted at the Zoological Society of London.
Organising Committee
Mike Appleton
Independent capacity expert
Brett Bruyere
Colorado State University
Jamie Copsey
Conservation Specialist Planning Group
Katie Curran
Pew Charitable Trusts
Marianne Carter, Laura Owens and Stuart Paterson
Fauna & Flora International
Kay Farmer
Independent capacity expert
Tejas Khaire
Indian Herpetological Society
Kiragu Mwangi
BirdLife International
Mark O’Connell
University of Gloucestershire
Nisha Owen, Olivia Couchman and Ellie Smith
Zoological Society of London
Beth Robinson and Adam Barlow
WildTeam
Chris Sandbrook
University of Cambridge
Eleanor Sterling
American Museum of Natural History
Rod Sterne
WWF
Thirza Loffeld
Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE)
Andrea Santy
Smithsonian Institution
