Saving Nature

About us

Saving Nature works at the intersection of deforestation, climate change, and population growth to help mediate the competing interests of a planet already past its limits of sustainability. We focus on the most biodiverse places on Earth where species face imminent threats of extinction. We intervene to reconnect fragmented and isolated ecosystems to eliminate barriers and bottlenecks for biodiversity, revitalize ecosystem services, buffer human and wildlife populations, and absorb carbon from the atmosphere. 

Saving Nature partners with well-established local conservation groups to acquire and restore degraded land with native trees to create strategic wildlife corridors. Our local partners own the land, manage the protected areas, engage the local communities, work with government organizations, and participate in scientific research. Saving Nature provides resources to promote conservation and community engagement, advise on science, fund land purchases, mentor local conservation groups, and guide monitoring and research. Together, we build local capacity for conservation and develop future leaders with practical insights into restoring habitat, saving species from extinction, recolonizing species, and protecting ecosystem services for local communities. 

Organization History:	 
Dr. Stuart Pimm founded Saving Nature in 2019 as part of his vision for restoring nature for sustainable gains and broader impact. Saving Nature builds on the exceptional success with SavingSpecies, an organization Pimm founded in 2007 to create wildlife corridors in important areas for biodiversity. Notably, Saving Nature has a considerably expanded conservation mission – fighting climate change, the extinction crisis, and the aftermath of environmental destruction for local communities. 

Saving Nature has developed a unique approach for leveraging local conservation action to solve global environmental challenges. Our goal is to make the right investments in conservation to maximize success. To do so, we use science to drive our programs, seek peer review from experts, and develop capacity in local organizations to carry out the work. 

Focus on Biodiversity Hotspots 
We focus on nature in crisis in biodiversity hotspots. By and large, we work in the tropics, where poverty and environmental destruction converge, driving species extinctions and hardship for local communities. From there, we acquire and restore habitat to secure a sustainable future for threatened species and the planet. 

As a science-driven conservation organization, we deploy analytical methods to pinpoint the best locations to intervene – narrowing down hotspots spanning hundreds of thousands of hectares to target the most critical locations for practical action – generally areas less than 5,000 hectares. Our approach distils the success factors needed for effective conservation into actionable interventions - the highest number of threatened, endemic, and small range species; the elevational gradients where they concentrate, the patterns of deforestation, and the immediate threats to the last standing forests. 

We set our conservation priorities using strategic and tactical maps of species diversity, threat status, and deforestation mosaics to determine where interventions will save the most species at the highest risk of extinction. Our data sources include species distribution maps from the IUCN (mammals and amphibians) and BirdLife International (birds); endangered species data from the IUCN Red List; and satellite imagery from Google Earth. By layering heat maps of this data over 3D habitat visualizations, we get a clear picture of areas needing the most immediate action. Our tactical mapping of where exactly forest restorations can have the greatest impacts was recently featured in American Scientist (See Pimm SL, Jenkins CN. (2019) American Scientist. 107(3):162-9.). 

Our Science Board 
We are guided by a Science Board comprised of leading conservation scientists with decades of experience and respected leadership in the dynamics of habitat loss and species extinctions. Our current Science Board includes Dr. Trevor Price, Professor of Ecology and Evolution, The University of Chicago; Dr. Peter Raven, President Emeritus, Missouri Botanical Garden; and Dr. Patricia Wright, Professor of Anthropology at State University of New York, Stony Brook. Our former members include E.O. Wilson and Thomas Lovejoy, the founders of modern conservation. 

Conservation Partnerships 
We work with local non-governmental organizations, young scientists, and the scientific community. Through this collaboration, we develop fresh insights and best practices for monitoring, modeling, and sharing front-line lessons. Our goal is to improve the knowledge base for restoring habitat, recolonizing species, and protecting ecosystem services for local communities.