What is Conservation Planning? Long-term conservation of endangered species continues to face new and emerging challenges, such as novel diseases and the impacts of climate change. In today’s world, the view that all species can be effectively conserved with minimal management simply by creating large areas of protected habitat is unrealistic. There is an increasing need for active management and long-term human intervention, guided by strategic plans that are tailored to the conservation needs of species. This is where CPSG Canada comes in!
CPSG Canada is a Regional Resource Center of the Conservation Planning Specialist Group (CPSG), part of the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. To enhance national conservation efforts and save species, CPSG Canada employs CPSG’s globally recognized planning tools and processes, provides technical and facilitation support for planning workshops, and builds capacity for conservation planning in Canada. CPSG Canada is hosted by Wildlife Preservation Canada (WPC) and supported by members at African Lion Safari and Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo.
What’s your favourite species of wildlife? Is it a fluffy chinchilla or maybe a secretive snake that you occasionally see in your backyard? Perhaps you prefer searching for rare plants or seeing the bright green flash of a tiger beetle along your favourite trails. Regardless of what your favourite species is (and really who can pick just one?), as the building blocks of ecosystems, they all contribute to supporting life on this planet.
Unfortunately, biodiversity—the variety of all life on Earth—is under threat. The species that form the basis of ecosystems are quickly disappearing, destabilizing the intricate web of life on our planet. Over 48,000 species are threatened with extinction according to the IUCN Red List, the world’s most comprehensive source on the global extinction risk of animal, fungus and plant species (IUCN 2026). In Canada alone, 582 species are assessed to be at risk of extinction by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), our national version of the Red List. As WPC’s founder Gerall Durrell wrote, “The world is as delicate and as complicated as a spider’s web. If you touch one thread, you send shudders running through all the other threads. We are not just touching the web, we are tearing great holes in it.”
While conserving all these species is a daunting mission, we are not alone in the fight to save endangered wildlife. Dedicated conservationists all around the world are working to reverse the tide of biodiversity loss.
Stephanie giving graduation presentation at CPSG Annual Meeting in Cali. Photo: F. Rocha.
This past October I attended the Annual Meeting of the Conservation Planning Specialist Group (CPSG)(checkout the proceedings here), where I met many of those practitioners who are supporting conservation efforts for a wide diversity of species. In Brazil, for example, an inspiring team (Onças do Iguaçu) is working to improve human-jaguar coexistence around Iguaçu National Park. This park protects a large area of highly endangered Atlantic rainforest – an ecosystem that has been reduced in size to only 12% of what it once was across the continent. This parcel of forest in Brazil is now largely bordered by agricultural lands, which makes it an area rife for human-wildlife conflict. By working and developing trusting relationships with the local community, many of whom are livestock owners, the Brazilian conservation team are helping to reduce that conflict, and create better outcomes for the native jaguars of the region. That means committing time to talk to the people who live and work in these areas, fully understanding their concerns and viewpoints, and working to find ways for both people and big cats to thrive. It also sometimes means responding to calls about frightened chickens in the middle of the night – talk about dedication!
Stephanie participates in a discussion group at the CPSG Annual Meeting. Photo: E. Townsend.
Threats to species might not always be the same in different places; looking at Canadian conservation, we don’t have the enormous challenge of how humans can coexist with big cats, but there are always similarities to be found. A rattlesnake is no jaguar, but the threat of a venomous snake can still breed fear and persecution from humans. We also face similar challenges in how to best prioritize species for conservation when you have limited resources at your disposal, or how to effectively develop partnership with others whose goals might not be the same as your own. Attending this meeting allowed me to learn and share with the CPSG network, which is a deep well of expertise and knowledge to tap into, having helped develop conservation plans for more than 2000 species across 110 countries and 6 continents! I learned about approaches other countries are taking to prioritize species most in need of conservation measures, connected with experts in conservation genetics, ex situ conservation, and multi-species conservation, and even shared some of our experiences in Canada, including conservation planning for plants. This meeting was also an opportunity for me to reflect on all the projects I’ve had the opportunity to assist on over the past few years of my facilitator development path and all the amazing, committed people I’ve been privileged to work alongside on those projects. Being part of the CPSG network gives me hope that we can give a better future to all our favourite species.
Check out the full proceedings of the 2025 CPSG Annual Meeting here.
Stephanie Winton
CPSG Canada Convener and Conservation Planning Coordinator
Stephanie was Wildlife Preservation Canada’s 31st Canada’s New Noah in 2022 and has returned to WPC to apply her experience in integrated in situ and ex situ conservation management approaches and facilitation of species conservation planning workshops to build capacity and enhance conservation planning for species at risk in Canada. Stephanie holds an MSc from Thompson Rivers University where she researched the impacts of road mortality on western rattlesnake populations in BC and has over ten years of experience in conservation and research with a diversity of threatened species in Canada and globally, including burrowing owls, tiger salamanders, northern leopard frogs, black-tailed prairie dogs, and Mauritian reptiles.
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