Who leads the work behind the 30% by 2030 goal
Nations have committed to protecting 30% of the planet’s land and water by 2030. Meeting that commitment depends on people who can move funders, agencies and communities toward one plan. ASU’s Conservation Futures Academy is building that capacity, and more than 500 professionals have come through it.
The constraint is coordination
The world has committed to protecting 30% of its land and water by 2030 under the UN Global Biodiversity Framework. Ecological plans for that work already exist. What holds them up is the coordination around them: a funder to back the plan, an agency to permit it, partners to carry it and a community to steward it over decades. Those interests rarely align on their own, and the people who can align them are in short supply.
What the Academy has built
ASU’s Conservation Futures Academy, the professional learning arm of the Rob Walton School of Conservation Futures, trains for that specific capacity. More than 500 professionals from over 400 organizations have come through the Academy as of {DATE}, among them teams from Microsoft, NASA and the National Forest Foundation.
Inside the flagship course
The Future of Conservation Leadership course is co-designed with Conservation International, whose practitioners set the standard in the field, and delivered through the Academy. Mid-career and senior practitioners build a Leadership Survival Kit around a challenge from their own organization. It holds a systems map, a Theory of Change, measurable goals and a stakeholder plan they can act on and show to a board or a funder. Recent cohorts have included professionals from the National Park Service and former U.S. Agency for International Development staff.
The course also teaches futures methods, including scenario building, so leaders plan for what is coming instead of reacting to it.
Why it sits at a university
“This is ASU with its ear to the ground, seeing the need before it is fully here and being agile enough to move with it.” â Alexandrina Agloro, course instructor and assistant professor, ASU
Conservation leadership takes decades to pay off and crosses finance, policy, technology and community. A university can hold work on that timescale and convene those sectors in one room. It is one way ASU Learning Enterprise and its partners are turning conservation expertise into conservation leadership at scale.
Take the next step
Read the full story on the Conservation Futures Academy newsroom, or explore partnership opportunities with the Academy.