The Salazar Center’s fifth International Symposium on Conservation Impact focused on how to achieve a nature-positive future together, to catapult our communities towards durable, high-impact outcomes for climate, biodiversity, and human well-being.
We brought together diverse thought leaders to share ideas and best practices for moving beyond individual pilot projects to build lasting systems change for nature and communities across North America. Our two-day dialogue elevated the interconnectedness of biodiversity loss and climate change, both in terms of their impacts and solutions, while highlighting how a nature-based approach can enhance the resilience of both our planet and society. By design, we assembled speakers with varied expertise and backgrounds to showcase the breadth of differing, and sometimes contrarian, opinions and ideas related to our theme. Our intent with this approach was to facilitate our attendees’ ability to deepen their understanding of the issues and perhaps challenge their perspectives.
The 2023 Symposium Synthesis Report summarizes five cross-cutting themes that emerged from the Symposium, as well as key takeaways from each session. The themes reflect ideas, needs, and opportunities raised multiple times by speakers or attendees. Like the interconnectedness of biodiversity and climate, each theme is also connected to the next. Together, they help illuminate potential shared pathways to enrich biodiversity and build long-term, stable societies and healthy economies across North America.
Don’t have time to read the full report? No problem! We’ve broken it down so you can focus on what resonates the most right now.
Cross-cutting Theme: Urgency & Scale
“We can win on this.” – Sacha Spector
Throughout the Symposium, participants expressed a deep urgency to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss, and interconnected and converging threats. At the same time, we must balance this urgency with the need to deliver the right outcomes, which can take significant time. Our speakers also recognized that as a conservation community, we have never had as much federal government support as we do now. So, how do we leverage this moment of federal momentum to create change and spur a ‘restoration economy’ that can outlast changes in political support or administrations? We need to push the kinds of catalytic, transformative systems change that will connect the people on the ground to resources equitably and effectively.
Closely tied to the discussion of urgency was the notion of scale. We have many effective tools and model projects. Are we missing opportunities to meet the urgency of the moment because we are not scaling already-proven NBS work? Conversely, many Symposium speakers cautioned that there are no ‘silver arrow solutions,’ and trying to scale place-based projects to new areas may not work. Scaling needs to be understood within the project’s local context. Our conservation community should also consider focusing on replicating and scaling effective processes across communities facing similar challenges rather than trying to replicate projects. Getting to scale will require tailoring strategies to place and people while applying the process and techniques that we know are effective.
Engaging the next generation of conservation leaders
As we continue to strive for equitable nature-based solutions, speakers repeatedly raised the need for the conservation community to focus on the role that youth can play in shaping solutions. Not only will today’s youth have to shoulder the burdens of decisions made by previous generations, but younger generations also are a source of ideas and innovation. We have a meaningful opportunity to integrate Indigenous youth’s TEK by addressing institutional barriers that have prevented their participation in traditional conservation fields. Building stronger intergenerational equity can help lead to more durable nature-based solutions and better support for future generations.
Lastly, we heard throughout the Symposium that there is a need to resolve potential conflicts between climate and biodiversity solutions. We cannot let our greater sense of urgency around climate change supersede concerns about biodiversity protection or, worse, negatively impact biodiversity protection goals and equitable outcomes for communities. Good, effective policies will fully analyze and prioritize the impacts of climate solutions to ensure there are no unintended consequences for biodiversity, ecosystems, and communities.
Download the full 2023 Symposium Synthesis Report