We are addressing this key global challenge with clarity of vision and strategic direction alongside an excellence in execution that will lead to transformative outcomes. I am delighted that CCI has been designated as one of the University’s new Strategic Initiatives.
Introducing the Cambridge Conservation Initiative
One of the great challenges of the 21st century is to understand and manage human impacts on biodiversity. The Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) is a unique collaboration between the University of Cambridge and leading biodiversity conservation organisations in and around Cambridge, UK.
CCI seeks to transform the global understanding and conservation of biodiversity and the natural capital it represents and, through this, secure a sustainable future for all life on Earth. The CCI partners together combine and integrate research, education, policy and practice to create innovative solutions for society and to foster conservation learning and leadership.
Cambridge, UK is the hub of the largest cluster of conservation organisations in the world. As part of CCI we are developing plans for a major Conservation Centre, where leaders in academia, business, government and non-governmental organisations can interact and work together.
A practical and nontechnical toolkit to measure ecosystem services at the site level
Posted November 2011
Ecosystem services are not only valuable economically but also essential for human well-being and survival and this is increasingly being used as an argument for conserving biodiversity and habitats throughout the world.
One of the outputs of the project titled Measuring and monitoring ecosystem services at the site scale: building practical tools for real-world conservation funded and supported through CCI’s Collaborative Fund Programme is the production of a practical and non technical tool kit to measure and monitor ecosystem services at the site-scale.
"Assessing ecosystem services can support advocacy for the conservation of individual sites or for their restoration and monitoring levels of ecosystem services over time will also help guide better management and further support arguments for conservation", says Kevin Peh, currently an AXA Post-doctoral fellow and the lead person testing and developing the toolkit.
The complete toolkit in the form of a manual will be published and circulated in early 2012 and will help identify and collect simple data on important ecosystem services at the focal test sites and could also be applicable across a large sample of sites worldwide. A recently produced booklet developed by Birdlife International and CCI gives a useful and illustrative introduction to ecosystem services in general and what the toolkit will cover and help achieve.
The Universities of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin and three independent conservation organisations the RSPB, Birdlife International and UNEP-WCMC are currently working collaboratively on this project and the toolkit resulting from it.
