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Welcome to The Center for Conservation Biology

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The Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) was established by Prof. Paul R. Ehrlich in the Department of Biology at Stanford University in 1984 and is directed by Prof. Gretchen C. Daily.  In pursuit of its mission, the CCB conducts interdisciplinary research to build a sound basis for the conservation, management, and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services, to evaluate factors that are leading to declining environmental security and increasing inequity, and to find practical solutions to that predicament.

Our work is oriented around understanding the dynamics of change in the biosphere, their implications for human well-being, and the deep societal transformations needed to secure people and nature.  Specifically,

  1. Given intensifying change in land use and climate, what elements of nature will survive over coming decades and centuries? We have pioneered the field of countryside biogeography to understand and forecast the dynamics and implications of change in biodiversity, across a wide array of taxa and regions, and spanning native and intensively managed ecosystems.
  2. What are the values of nature, and the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being?  We have played a pioneering role in advancing the field of ecosystem services to characterize the contributions of nature to people, ranging from physical and economic to psychological, social, and cultural dimensions of well-being.
  3. How can we transform the way people think and act on the environment, opening a pragmatic pathway to inclusive, green development?  We have played a foundational role in mainstreaming a science-based framework for integrating the values of nature into policy, finance, and management.  To this end, Gretchen has co-founded and directed the Natural Capital Project, an international partnership advancing this framework in over 60 nations, and now applied in 185 nations through our Natural Capital Data & Software Platform.