Conservation Planning
WCS’s Conservation Planning Team leads scientific analyses to inform conservation practice and decision-making across terrestrial and marine systems at local and global scales.
Our team supports the efforts of our regional and country programs to implement climate-informed protection, management and adaptation strategies throughout WCS regions and strongholds. We provide technical expertise to assess an area’s vulnerability based on the ecological and social variables threatened by climate change. Often our work leads to climate-smart planning on the ground, and capacity building within communities and governments to build more resilient land and seascapes.
Example Work:
Climate Vulnerability Assessment Afghanistan

Our species conservation work supports the long-term survival of diverse species through the development of near real-time integrated mapping and reporting systems. We support the development of interactive tools and portals to help identify and quantify opportunities for species persistence, but also to measure the effectiveness of conservation efforts for those species.
Example Work:
Tiger Conservation Landscapes
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Areas of Expertise
(Click each for further detail)
SPATIAL PLANNING
REMOTE SENSING
Time Series Analysis (e.g. Landsat, Sentinel)
Data pre-processing (e.g., cloud masking, filtering, smoothing, composites)
Biomass modeling, canopy height modeling, canopy cover modeling (Jarrah Forest Integrity Assessment forthcoming)
CLIMATE VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENTS
Integrated climate, biodiversity, ecosystem, species, livelihoods vulnerability assessments
Climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity assessments
Regional and global climate model projections
Integrating climate change projections into species and ecosystem risk assessments
ECOLOGICAL/ECOSYSTEM MODELING
Occupancy and abundance (N-mixture) modeling
Climate stability and dissimilarity modeling
Ecosystem and ecoregion shift modeling
Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) assessments
SPECIES DISTRIBUTION MODELING
Historical and future species range projections
Presence-only and presence-absence SDMs
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
STATISTICS
Advanced ecological statistics in R (e.g., multivariate regression, model selection, inference, hypothesis testing, etc.)
AUTOMATION AND BIG DATA
Large database management
Task automation in R and Google Earth Engine (Javascript)
High performance and cloud computing (e.g., Amazon Web Services, supercomputing clusters)
Automated data retrieval
DATA VISUALIZATION
Custom Google Earth Engine apps
Publication quality figures, maps, charts, and tables
TRAINING AND CAPACITY BUILDING
Formal and informal science education
Development of training materials
Conservation Standards (adaptive management, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation)
COMMUNICATIONS
Website design including user experience and information architecture
Marketing and branding
Stakeholder engagement (including materials needed for stakeholder communication)
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT
FUNDRAISING
Proposal development (writing, presentations, budget development, etc.)
Selected Recent Publications
In the Media
An Overlooked Opportunity for Forest Restoration
To date, our restoration focus has overlooked more than half of the world’s existing forests that haven’t been cleared, but have been modified by logging or other human activities, write WCS's Kemen Austin, Tim Rayden and Kendall Jones for PBS Nature.
Act NowHow to build renewables without threatening biodiversity? Carefully
“Renewable energy is absolutely critical for climate goals,” WCS's Rachel Neugarten told Grist. “However, if it’s located in the wrong places it could have negative impacts.”
Act NowProtect Half The Planet, Get Nearly All Of Nature’s Rewards
Research indicates that strategically safeguarding just under half of Earth’s land could maintain nearly all of nature’s contributions to people.
Act NowMapping the Planet’s Critical Areas
Identifying areas where conservation and sustainable management can provide 90 percent of nature’s contributions to people and meet biodiversity goals.
Act NowSign Up for Email Updates
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