We often talk about the importance of learning from our mistakes, but finding well documented examples of this in conservation can be challenging. Taking inspiration from sectors with well established cultures of acknowledging and learning from failure, the CCI Embracing Failures Project is a collaborative initiative looking to improve the way that conservation practitioners record, discuss and ultimately learn from failure.

How can I participate?

The project has developed a taxonomy of root causes of failure in conservation. This taxonomy is designed to be used as a tool for identifying, recording and discussing failure in a constructive way, where the primary focus is on learning, rather than apportioning blame.

To test this taxonomy we are looking for conservation practitioners who have been involved in a conservation effort that they consider to have “failed” in some way. If you meet this description we would like you to review the draft taxonomy, test it by highlighting the root causes of failure that are relevant to your example, and let us know if anything is missing.

Relevant examples could include: cases of conservation work that did not meet some or all of their objectives, cases that met their short-term objectives but failed to provide the intended long-term impacts, cases where the intended long-term impacts were met but the intervention did not contribute significantly to achieving these or cases that failed initially but succeeded later on (in these cases we are interested in the reasons for the initial failure).

Instructions

If you have a relevant example, please click on the following link, review the root causes of failure in the taxonomy, check ALL the root causes of failure that apply to your example and let us know if anything is missing, unclear or obsolete.

Link to the form: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/W79B5WP

Please only enter information for one example at a time. If you have more than one example you would like to test please start a new form.

The form should take around 5 minutes to complete. We would like to have all entries completed by the March 31^st 2020.

ANONYMITY DISCLAIMER

All information used in this project is subject to strict anonymity protocols and at no point will we ask for or share any information that could be used to identify specific individuals, locations, projects or organisations.

Additional links

Full draft taxonomy: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18C6afI4PHLLbtjsmf0KybOopsxSZ8DKn/view?usp=sharing

More information on the projects anonymity protocols can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15XpzTrYUe8MlbuH36URViPLG215fUhC8/view?usp=sharing  

If you have any questions please contact [email protected]