Traditional conservation tactics have not succeeded

Despite 35 years of practice, traditional conservation practices to monitor, restore and protect species have been ineffective in addressing the root causes of extinction. It is estimated that 1 million species may already face extinction, with an extinction rate ten to hundreds of times higher than the past 10 million years.

Much as we have ranked the species and areas we need to protect, we must do the same with the solutions. Although conservation science was created as a solutions-based discipline as well as a crisis-based discipline, it has been neither. We seek to use the index to change that.

The Extinction Solutions Index is our answer

Instead of annual reports on biodiversity decline and threatened species that encourage business-as-usual approaches, we need tools that support this critical decision making and meet the scale of biodiversity loss.

The ESI will allow policymakers, practitioners, and innovators to better understand the impact, potential costs, and projected outcomes of the best solutions, as well as the landscape of current initiatives and the failures of existing solutions.

The ESI will provide the roadmap we desperately need

In its final form, the ESI will be a ranked list of conservation solutions that directly impact extinction rates.

It will not only provide decision-making support for innovators but will ultimately function as the roadmap for targeted conservation actions.

At Climate Week 2023, we will collectively enhance the framework design and gather the first set of solutions for analysis and evaluation.