Lifescape International Inc
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Mission Statement
S.P.E.C.I.E.S., the Society for the Preservation of Endangered Carnivores and their International Ecological Study, is the only organization dedicated to the conservation of all of the world's carnivores. Our mission is to ensure the viability, diversity, and integrity of the world’s threatened, endangered, and declining native carnivore populations and communities, mitigate threats to their future survival, and restore their part to the healthy functioning of the planet’s ecosystems. We believe the threats that many species face are complex, and there is rarely such thing as a 'silver bullet' solution that can applied broadly. This is because conservation is ultimately about people, who of course are as diverse as the world's plants and animals. We work hard to find meaningful, human-centered solutions that are practical, effective, and sustainable, to achieve lasting impacts for the species we are committed to protecting, and the habitats they depend on. Today S.P.E.C.I.E.S. is working in 17 different countries on four continents to save threatened carnivores large and small, from the very familiar to the lesser known. From jaguars to bush dogs, fishing cats to tigers, sun bears to striped hyenas, and maned wolves to clouded leopards, just to name a few, S.P.E.C.I.E.S. works on the frontlines of conservation to reduce threats to carnivores, improve the lives and well-beings of human communities, and ultimately, facilitate coexistence between people and these critically important species for a sustainable future. We like to say that "wildness" begins and ends with the conservation of nature's predators.
About This Cause
LifeScape International, Inc., is the nonprofit parent corporation of the organization, S.P.E.C.I.E.S. LifeScape was founded on the reality that the world we see around us is in fact, a living and breathing landscape, biotic and abiotic factors where form, function, and process are interdependent and inextricable from one another. We believe that whereas the existence of many groups of organisms that comprise the “Lifescape” are subject to pervasive, overarching threats, most of these groups of species present unique challenges for conservation professionals, and often demand focused and strategic attention. Wildlife such as bats, small mammals, sharks, primates, snakes, and raptors, to name a few, would benefit from their own unifying narratives, as well as a cohesive, underlying formula for approaching their conservation. This is in part because of their evolutionary/natural history; in part due to the way these species respond to the expanding global human footprint; in part, due to their variable role in the functioning of ecological communities; and partly, because of the way the international public and local communities and stakeholders perceive them. In the late 2000’s, S.P.E.C.I.E.S. kicked off the LifeScape experiment as a focus on mammalian “carnivores”, a taxonomic group that relative to much of their contemporary biotic communities, is difficult to detect or monitor in the wild, occur at low population densities in ecosystems, and have large, wide-ranging territorial and area requirements. With a disproportionately high number of species declining worldwide and endangered, carnivores – including wild cats, wolves and wild dogs, bears, hyenas, wolverines, and their kin – are everywhere threatened by the continued conversion and development of natural habitat. This process drives and exacerbates more acute threats, such as increased mortalities resulting from conflict with humans, a rise in exploitation and trafficking due to new markets, roadkill due to expanding urban development, and the worsening consequences of climate change. Today, S.P.E.C.I.E.S. is the sole enterprise of LifeScape. Our activities first began in Paraguay, where back in 2004-2005, there was little information on the jaguar or indeed, on biodiversity in general. After a brief investigation of Mbaracayu Forest Nature Reserve in eastern Paraguay, the largest remnant of what was a vast Atlantic Forest, we turned our attention to the Paraguayan Chaco, which constitutes nearly one-third of the third largest biome in South America, the vast Gran Chaco. In 2007-2008, we founded the Chaco Jaguar Conservation Project, which remains one of our flagship programs to this day. Since these early days, we have continued to look for ways we can help the planet that the conservation establishment has largely overlooked. This pioneering philosophy is now emblematic of how we plug into the larger, sometimes crowded world of conservation, and its many environmental organizations. We look to science as our guide; it is our backbone, keeping us steady as we develop and test our ideas. It guides us to effective solutions, strategies and approaches that account for the ecological, social, cultural, political, and economic complexities of today’s conservation problems. An important part of the S.P.E.C.I.E.S. mission is to safeguard threatened and endangered carnivore species by addressing the drivers of threats at different scales. We often rely on novel approaches technologies and social innovations, careful to integrate proven or evidence-based approaches whenever and wherever context permits. Over the past 14 years and with the help of our numerous partners and associates, our activities have expanded to 17 countries, positively impacting dozens of endangered species and threatened ecosystems, most not on the radar of mainstream institutional conservation efforts or investments. Among those species and habitats for whom we are already having an impact are clouded leopards and sun bears, in creating more permeable oil palm mosaics in Malaysia and Indonesia; dholes, leopards, and sloth bears in India, for which we are advancing coexistence with rural human communities adjacent to national parks; and the ocelot on Trinidad, where this small cat may be the key to our program connecting habitat and wildlife-friendly agricultural production on this Caribbean island. The Chaco Jaguar Conservation Project, a fully integrative program that started out as the first scientific survey of jaguars in Paraguay, perhaps best typifies our comprehensive, long-term approach. Today, the CJCP is a leading transboundary conservation effort, and the only significant jaguar conservation program of its kind in the entire Gran Chaco. We have improved the status of jaguars, and habitat connectivity for them, by contributing to the livelihoods of our stakeholders and reducing livestock losses. One way we have done this is by using global and regional markets to build sustainable supply chains and husbandry practices for their cattle production businesses. It is through our commitment to people, that we save jaguars… And it is by working closely with our partner institutions in Bolivia and Peru, that we first learned of the insidious connection between human-jaguar conflict, and the growing illegal trade in jaguar parts. A threat we are now also tackling… Whether it is a focus on the effective deployment of tools to protect livestock from carnivores; ensuring that local communities benefit financially from carnivore-centered ecotourism; or conducting focus groups with consumers to assess the value of predator-friendly commodities, we like to say we are a small organization having big impacts. One of the mechanisms that allows us to punch beyond our weight class is through the building and leveraging of trusted relationships. Just as political capital is the glue that binds our stakeholders to us, so it allows us to forge and cement lasting partnerships with our individual and institutional collaborators. Although we have only a handful of permanent and part-time staff, we have almost 100 hundred senior scientific associates, professional interns and volunteers, and international graduate students, helping to advance our mission around the world… and that number is growing. What increasingly sets us apart from other conservation NGO’s is the critical interdisciplinary thinking we invest in every decision at every stage. From ideation, implementation, and scaling; to our beneficiaries and strategic partners; to the practical, socio-cultural, and political considerations of project management; to the values of our local communities, and the prospect of long-term financial sustainability… we surround ourselves with the most capable and forward-thinking folks, both in the U.S. and Europe, and on the ground across the Global South where we work. They include molecular biologists, social entrepreneurs, App and tech-savvy software developers, data scientists, engineers, GIS spatial and predictive analysts, business start-ups, and accomplished international faculty, just to name a few; all leaders in their space. And among our staff, associates, and partners, we have many decades of experience in mapping and analyzing data related to illegal logging, illegal wildlife trade (IWT), poaching, environmental and wildlife monitoring, and human-wildlife conflict; and we have equally as many decades using evidence to develop real-world solutions to the most complex conservation problems. With your monthly financial support of our mission and novel approaches, just think of the impact we can have together…?