Monitoring for Impact

WWF’s scientists partner with conservation actors around the world to answer critical questions about what works in conservation and why. Drawing on different scientific disciplines, participatory approaches, and systems thinking, our approach to monitoring, evaluation, and learning is rooted in collaboration and guided by the critical need to invest in conservation solutions that deliver positive results for both people and nature. Not only does our work aim to generate evidence to inform conservation, it seeks to draw insight from existing diverse knowledge sources and systems—including practitioner experience, traditional and Indigenous knowledge, and scientific research—to support program strategy, design, and implementation. We work with the environmental evidence and knowledge synthesis communities of practice to bring reliable and relevant evidence to bear to inform critical conservation decisions.

WWF scientists have developed information, tools, and methods in collaboration with the conservation community as well as linked sectors such as health, environmental management, development, computer and data science, to support organizational monitoring. These resources and collaborations enable WWF to generate, synthesize, and deliver evidence-based insights on critical topics—such as community-based conservation, governance of protected and conserved areas, and nature-based interventions. In particular, we work to harness technological innovations such as remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and data science capacities to support conservation actors to efficiently assess change.