Can Community-Led Conservation Actually Scale?

​About the session
The crises facing nature, from biodiversity collapse to climate disruption and the erosion of livelihoods tied to healthy ecosystems, demand not just better conservation, but conservation that works at a fundamentally larger scale. Yet the sector often confuses scale with growth. They are not the same thing.

​Growth means bigger budgets, more sites, and more staff. Scale means something harder and more important: clearly designed interventions that generate measurable social and environmental impact in ways that can be replicated and adapted across contexts.

​In conservation, scaling almost never means one organization doing more. It means spreading effective ideas and models so that many organizations, rooted in their own communities, can carry them forward in locally appropriate ways. That shift challenges how most conservation organizations think about success, influence, and their role in the field.

​This conversation brings together leaders working directly at the intersection of community leadership, conservation, and scale to explore what it actually takes to spread models that work.

​Hosted by

• ​Rohit Gawande, Mulago Foundation

• ​Adam Miller, Planet Indonesia

• ​Jessie Davie, Maliasili

• ​Salisha Chandra, Lion Guardians

• ​Jagdeesh Puppala, Living Landscapes

• ​Dr. Vik Mohan

​Who this is for
This session is for conservation leaders and practitioners wrestling with whether, when, and how to scale. It is also for funders who want to support scale without distorting it, and for social entrepreneurs navigating the tension between depth and reach.

​If your organization is asking questions like: Should we scale? What does responsible scaling look like? Why did our last attempt stall? This conversation is for you.

​What you will get out of it

• ​A clearer understanding of the difference between growth and scale

• ​Perspectives from organizations actively working to spread community-led conservation models

• ​Insight into how conservation efforts can be replicated and adapted across contexts

• ​A deeper look at the discipline of designing models that others can carry forward

​Scaling is not a race to grow. It is a discipline of clarity, design, and influence, and the willingness to let others carry what you have built.