In a meeting room in a head office in London, a handful of early-career conservationists from around the world sat in a circle on the floor to share their challenges of working in conservation. The conversation was sobering. From affording everyday bills, juggling multiple unsecured jobs and dealing with burnout to harassment in the field, threats by extractive industries and abduction by narcotic gangs, the breadth of burdens on these young emerging leaders was astonishing, and the need for support by small grants was clear.

After three more similar workshops hosted by the project I lead — the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) EDGE of Existence program — and fast-forward a year, my inbox holds 1,700 applications for our annual fellowship call, a bewildering demand for perhaps 10 places and all for roles that encounter the burdens described in the workshops. This kind of demand is not unusual; I’ve heard similar ratios for other fellowships and small grant schemes. In the same month, numerous blows to funding pipelines for organizations, both large and small, worldwide, have surfaced.

Now, like many others, we find ourselves facing a sharp juxtaposition: an overwhelming demand from talented, dedicated teams working on urgent conservation projects that are ready for implementation, contrasted with decreasing, fragile and unpredictable upstream funding.

Conservation Is Hitting an Opportunity Bottleneck

Yes, conservation is facing a convergence of accelerating ecological decline, weakened institutions, disinformation-fueled information breakdowns and mounting threats to frontline defenders. Yet perhaps worse — because it undermines many solutions to these issues — is that conservation is facing an opportunity bottleneck.

Our experience is that there are unprecedented numbers of early-career conservationists and fledgling organizations in operation, or on the cusp of formation, all poised to implement locally appropriate, grounded solutions to the biodiversity crisis. But our funding logic, support models and workplace practices can’t adapt fast enough to absorb them.

That gap is a huge missed opportunity. What we are missing is not ideas, enthusiasm or commitment; it’s opportunities to act. For those who do win the conservation grant lottery, the cost is often human: Burnout and precarity rise, and without a budgeted duty of care — including essentials such as security, legal and mental health support — committed conservationists stall or are forced to step away from the sector altogether.

Read the full article about supporting early-career conservationists by Paul Barnes at Mongabay.