Conservation Strategy Fund

Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF) works to teach economics to conservation professionals in high biodiversity countries, building permanent capacity in regions where it is greatly needed and in very short supply. This award supports the Oceans and Fish strategy in Indonesia, which broadens the application of economic tools and analysis in support of sustainable fisheries management and development. With this award, CSF is supporting policy makers, academics, and government officials at national and sub-national levels with targeted economic analysis and on the use of economics in decision-making, and broadly expanding economic training in support of sustainable fisheries and marine conservation.

Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF) practices conservation economics and teaches economics to conservation professionals in high biodiversity countries, building permanent capacity in regions where it is greatly needed but in short supply. CSF won a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2011. This grant supports CSF’s work on catalyzing incentives for thriving landscapes, assessing the value of protected areas, and encouraging smart energy and transportation infrastructure in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. This flexible program support allows CSF to respond to urgent and emerging issues and to plan strategically for future interventions and conservation initiatives.

Through a survey in the southern tropical Andes, grantees identified a key knowledge gap: environmental economics used to demonstrate the value of nature to decision-makers and communities. Grantees rated this topic as one of their top needs to produce conservation outcomes. Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF) is a MacArthur grantee in this region that provides environmental economics support and technical capacity to other Andes-Amazon grantees. The "Program on Investment Appraisal and Risk Analysis” (PIAR) course provided CSF staff with  advanced training in financial modeling, risk analysis and project financing, economic analysis, environmental analysis, and stakeholder impact assessment. This training had a significant impact on CSF’s capacity to deliver high quality applied research and capacity-building in Peru and the southern tropical Andes.

Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF) works to teach economics to conservation professionals in high biodiversity countries, building permanent capacity in regions where it is greatly needed but in very short supply. CSF won a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2011. The project is addressing critical gaps in knowledge about the opportunity costs of conservation in the Tropical Andes and improving understanding about the effectiveness of incentive based approaches to conservation, land use, and climate change. CSF will use the award to: a) generate and make broadly available information on the opportunity cost of maintaining standing forests in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia; and b) build in-region capacity on analyzing, designing and more effectively implementing incentive programs to improve rural livelihoods and reduce threats to forest ecosystems.

Conservation Strategy Fund will support 15-20 individuals from NGOs and government to attend the two-week Economic Tools for Marine Conservation program. During the course, participants use real cases to analyze the economic benefits of local marine resources and sustainable management and demonstrate the costs and benefits of various development options. Graduates will be able to analyze conservation challenges in new ways and design more effective responses.