Conservation International (CI) is an American nonprofit environmental organization headquartered in Crystal City, Virginia. Founded in 1987 by Spencer Beebe and Peter Seligmann, it works internationally on biodiversity conservation and the links between ecosystems and human well-being, with programs that include climate and marine initiatives and work with governments, communities and other partners.
In 1987, CI helped negotiate a debt-for-nature swap with Bolivia -- the first of its kind. It adopted biodiversity hotspots as a framework for setting conservation priorities in 1989, and created the Rapid Assessment Program in 1990 to carry out time-limited biodiversity surveys intended to inform conservation decisions. CI has also been involved in conservation finance and multilateral initiatives, including participation in the 2000 launch of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund and the creation of the Global Conservation Fund. Its public communications have included the celebrity-narrated campaign Nature Is Speaking (2014).
Conservation International operates primarily through Conservation International Foundation, a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and works through country programs and affiliated entities in multiple regions. In fiscal year 2024, the foundation reported US$271 million in revenue and US$298 million in expenses, and CI reported more than 1,600 employees in 2025. The organization has faced criticism over aspects of project implementation and its engagement with corporate partners.
History Founding and 1980s
Conservation International was founded in 1987 by Peter Seligmann and Spencer Beebe. Seligmann had worked at The Nature Conservancy and left that organization with a small staff and three board members to co-found CI with Beebe. Although The Nature Conservancy had developed from a U.S. land trust model, CI's first major project was not a domestic land purchase but an international conservation-finance transaction linked to tropical protected areas. The organization's early niche combined international field projects, priority-setting for high-biodiversity regions, and financial mechanisms intended to direct conservation funding to tropical countries.
In July 1987, Conservation International and the Government of Bolivia signed a debt-for-nature swap agreement that has been described as the first of its kind. Conservation International acquired US$650,000 of Bolivian external debt for US$100,000. Bolivia provided the Beni Biological Station Biosphere Reserve with maximum legal protection, created three adjacent protected areas, and agreed to provide US$250,000 in local currency for management activities in the reserve. The transaction helped establish conservation finance as an important part of CI's institutional identity, linking biodiversity protection with financial tools, government commitments, and local-currency funding for protected-area management.
In 1989, Conservation International adopted biodiversity hotspots as a framework for setting conservation priorities. The hotspot approach emphasized regions with high concentrations of endemic species and substantial habitat loss, providing a global screening tool for directing limited conservation resources. Together, the Bolivia debt swap and the adoption of hotspots reflected an early model built around international partnerships, biodiversity science, and finance rather than a single-country land-acquisition programme.
1990s In the early 1990s, Conservation International halted direct-mail fundraising and expanded its programs using support from board members and foundation grants, including from the MacArthur Foundation. In 1990, it entered its first corporate partnership, with McDonald's Corporation.
In 1990, Conservation International created the Rapid Assessment Program, a rapid biodiversity survey initiative intended to support conservation decision-making by generating biological information from field assessments. In the mid-1990s, the organization expanded its fundraising strategies, with increased emphasis on foundations and wealthy individual donors. In 1998, Conservation International scientists published an approach to setting conservation priorities that combined biodiversity hotspots and major tropical wilderness areas.
2000s In 2000, Conservation International participated in the launch of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), a partnership between the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility, and Conservation International that supports civil society conservation work in biodiversity hotspots. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation joined CEPF as a partner in 2001, and the Government of Japan joined in 2002.
In 2001, Conservation International launched the Global Conservation Fund, which focuses on establishing the financial sustainability of specific protected areas. In 2004, Starbucks launched Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, a verification program developed by Starbucks, Conservation International, and SCS Global Services.
In 2008, Conservation International updated its mission to focus on the connections between human well-being and natural ecosystems, and expanded its work with a stronger focus on marine conservation, scientific research, conservation finance, and partnerships with governments, corporations, and Indigenous and local communities.
2010s In 2014, Conservation International launched the public-awareness campaign Nature Is Speaking at SXSW Eco in Austin, Texas.
In 2017, M. Sanjayan was named chief executive officer, succeeding Peter Seligmann, who remained chair of the board.
2020s
In August 2025, Sanjayan stepped down as CEO, and Daniela Raik was appointed interim chief executive officer while the board conducted a search for a permanent CEO. In February 2026, Conservation International announced Sebastian Troëng as chief executive officer and named Lisa P. Jackson interim chair of the board, succeeding Robert J. Fisher. Conservation International epidemiologist Dr. Neil Vora was named to the 2025 Time 100 Next list. In fiscal year 2024, CI reported expenditures of more than US$297 million.
Approach and priorities Conservation International combines science-based priority setting with partnerships and financing mechanisms to support conservation at scale.
Conservation priority-setting
Conservationists use biodiversity hotspots as a screening tool for prioritizing conservation investment in regions that combine high concentrations of endemic species with extensive habitat loss. CI adopted the hotspots framework and has used it alongside other priority geographies such as major tropical wilderness areas and marine regions in its conservation work. Researchers have debated hotspot-based prioritization, with critiques that concentrating resources on hotspots can overlook areas outside hotspot boundaries that still have high conservation value.
Human well-being emphasis and communications In 2008, Conservation International updated its mission and programme framing to emphasize the relationship between natural ecosystems and human well-being. The shift placed the organization within a broader movement in conservation science that treated biodiversity protection, ecosystem services, development, climate resilience and human livelihoods as linked objectives rather than separate policy areas. This approach was reflected in CI's growing emphasis on ecosystem services, nature-based solutions, conservation finance, climate adaptation, marine conservation and partnerships with governments, corporations, Indigenous peoples and local communities.
The public message most closely associated with this change was that "people need nature to thrive". In practice, this framing moved CI's public communications away from appeals based mainly on protecting nature for its own sake and toward arguments that functioning ecosystems support food, freshwater, climate stability, health, livelihoods and economic security. The shift also helped connect the organization's older biodiversity-priority-setting work to newer programme areas such as blue carbon, freshwater assessment, climate adaptation and sustainable production landscapes.
CI's best-known expression of this communications strategy was the 2014 campaign Nature Is Speaking, launched at SXSW Eco in Austin, Texas. The campaign used short films narrated by celebrity voices to personify elements of nature and to argue that nature would persist in some form, but that human societies depend on functioning natural systems. Academic analysis of the campaign described it as a form of celebrity-mediated environmental communication that constructed nature as a speaking subject and linked concern for nature to concern for human futures.
The people-centred framing also placed CI within debates over the so-called "new conservation" movement. Supporters of human-well-being approaches argued that conservation strategies needed to integrate biodiversity protection with poverty, development, corporate behaviour, ecosystem services and the realities of human-dominated landscapes. Critics argued that framing nature mainly through human benefits, economic value or corporate partnerships could weaken commitments to biodiversity protection and the intrinsic value of non-human life. In CI's case, these debates overlapped with criticism of its corporate partnerships and of carbon-credit projects, which are discussed in the article's reception and criticism section.
Indigenous peoples and local communities Work with Indigenous peoples and local communities has been a recurring feature of Conservation International's programme model, especially where conservation depends on community governance, customary tenure, or long-term agreements over land and marine resources. Examples have included a proposed communal-reserve co-management model in the Peruvian Amazon, support for the Wai Wai-managed Kanashen Amerindian Protected Area in Guyana, the South Suriname Conservation Corridor advanced with Trio and Wayana communities, Māori-led ocean initiatives associated with Hinemoana Halo in Aotearoa New Zealand, conservation-lease arrangements with iTaukei landowners in Fiji's Sovi Basin, and ecological restoration work with Siona communities in Putumayo, Colombia.
Questions about community consent, land tenure and benefit-sharing in some CI-linked projects are discussed further in the article's reception and criticism section.
Science and research The Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science and Solutions serves as Conservation International's research hub. Its work links scientific research with field programmes, decision-support tools, monitoring, and applied conservation planning. The center works with CI field staff, traditional knowledge holders, communities, governments and other partners, and its staff structure includes roles focused on biodiversity science, nature-based solutions, blue carbon and science-for-impact functions.
A long-running strand of CI's conservation science has been global priority-setting. Published work associated with CI scientists includes frameworks for identifying biodiversity hotspots and major tropical wilderness areas as priority geographies for conservation investment. These approaches were intended to help direct limited conservation resources toward regions with high biodiversity value, high endemism, habitat loss or large remaining intact tropical ecosystems.