Candidate Conservation Banking

This Collaborative Initiatives Fund project is led by Todd Gartner of World Resources Institute in Washington, DC, and Josh Donlan of Advanced Conservation Strategies in Midway, Utah.  They are working on an innovative approach to endangered species conservation which they hope will inform national endangered species policy in the coming years.  The program, called Candidate Conservation Banking, will be piloted in 2012. 

The project involves a voluntary marketplace where conservation credits are bought and sold, providing landowners with financial incentives to protect critical habitat.  For the pilot, Todd and Josh will be focusing on the Gopher tortoise in the southeastern United States.  They will work with landowners and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and if the pilot program is successful, it has the potential to be used as a model nationwide for an alternative to traditional endangered species protection.  Todd and Josh presented a webinar, entitled "Innovation in Species Conservation: Conservation Banking for Candidate Species", to Switzer Fellows and colleagues in July 2012 in which they highlighted their work under this project and received valuable feedback from the Switzer Network.