Conservation X Labs has a bold aim: “to prevent an impending sixth mass extinction.” Climate Insider spoke to Alex Dehgan and Paul Bunje, the Co-Founders of Conservation X Labs, to learn more about what this means and why it’s important.
Conservation X Labs is an organization dedicated to innovation and technology in conservation. Unlike conventional efforts, it emphasizes utilizing advanced technology, latest innovations, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the marketplace to address significant challenges for the planet. The organization centers its work around the belief that Earth conservation is closely connected to and is the responsibility of its human inhabitants.
The Company’s Origins
The organization was co-founded by Alex Dehgan and Paul Bunje. Dehgan’s diverse background, encompassing diplomacy, science, and humanitarian efforts, has critically shaped his point of view on the state of conservation work today:.
“We’ve been doing the same thing for 50 years in the field of conservation. What do we have to show for it? We’ve prevented the problem from maybe getting much worse, but we’re still in the middle of a sixth mass extinction. We’re hollowing out entire groups of species. It’s not enough to build national parks or red lists of endangered species. We need to address the underlying pressures on species and places, and reinvent the products causing them,” said Dehgan.
Dehgan’s journey began with a bold change of course: while awaiting the start of a faculty role at the Yale School of Forestry, and a few days after coming in from 3 years living in a tent running a project to better understand and predict extinction, the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center took place. Driven by a desire for more direct impact in the wake of this catastrophic event, he joined the State Department, where he spent a significant portion of his career engaged in high-level diplomatic efforts to address pressing global conservation and climate issues. As the founding country director of the Wildlife Conservation Society Afghanistan Program, he helped create Afghanistan’s first national park, which is chronicled in his book, The Snow Leopard Project. Following this, he and others dedicated three years to running a humanitarian organization that evacuated from Afghanistan the individuals featured in his book. His humanitarian efforts and time spent with the people he rescued were inspiring for his approach towards conservation and community engagement.
Returning to the State Department at a senior level, Dehgan played a key role in high-profile initiatives across administrations, notably during President Obama’s tenure. Upon his subsequent appointment as the Chief Scientist at USAID, he created innovative programs like the Grand Challenges for Development, in collaboration with the Gates Foundation. The pivotal moment for Conservation X Labs, however, emerged from conversations with Paul Bunje – a longtime friend and fellow evolutionary biologist and American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow.
At the time, Paul was working as the Chief Scientist for the XPRIZE Foundation, where he led the impact strategy across grand challenge domains at XPRIZE, spanning civil society, environment, energy, health, and exploration. Prior, Paul was the founding ExecutiveDirector of the UCLA Center for Climate Change Solutions, the Managing Director of the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability, and a council member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Oceans.
Alex and Paul’s discussions returned over and over again to questions of how to effectively prevent extinction and combat climate change.
“Paul and I were having multiple conversations. He was at XPRIZE at this time, and was really asking this question: how do we do this to prevent extinction and prevent climate change? That really gave us the Genesis to create conservation X Labs,” said Dehgan.
Conservation X Labs’ Impact and Approach
Conservation X Labs has positioned itself as a leading force in the biodiversity space, with successes including over $30 million raised and over $12 million given away to organizations that are scaling their impact in the conservation technology field. Their influence spans 141 innovations in companies across six continents, impacting 70+ countries.
In emerging tech markets, we often see a mixture of VC-backed startups and government funded not-for-profits, but Conservation X Labs is hard to pin down. They’re like a high-tech lab that invents and develops new tools and methods to protect wildlife, natural habitats, and the environment. They combine the power of science, technology (like artificial intelligence, robotics, and genetic testing), and collaboration with experts and communities to find solutions to problems like poaching, habitat loss, and pollution.
The company’s focus on designing and running challenges is a key feature of their theory of impact. The founders of CXL believe the scope and scale of the problems facing the planet require exponential solutions; challenges, and the belief that brilliant ideas can come from anywhere, can bring those.
Climate change can often be a topic of despair and depression; the founders want to shift the narrative towards optimism and hope. Their view is that – with innovation and reimagining structures – it is possible to change the realm of what is possible.
“We can bring new people, solvers and solutions into the space of conservation, and we can actually transform the solution sets that are out there,” said Dehgan about the approach. “We can change the tone around climate change and conservation from one that is deeply depressive to one of optimism.”
Recognizing the limitations of traditional conservation practices, Conservation X Labs seeks revolutionary solutions rather than evolutionary ones. The goal is to address the underlying drivers of extinction by reinventing practices that impact biodiversity. By innovating and reimagining conservation strategies, this approach aims to create more effective and sustainable solutions to safeguard biodiversity.
Bunje believes that market approaches can help lead the way: “The way we’re [as a society] addressing biodiversity and conservation is technophobic, often anti-market, anti-capitalist. These approaches are incremental and linear, facing an exponentially growing problem. If we don’t get this piece [the biosphere] right, upon which humanity and civilization depend, then solving other crises, including the climate crisis, will be insufficient.”
Bunje emphasizes the need to break away from technophobic and anti-market sentiments, asserting that only by adopting innovative, scalable approaches can we effectively safeguard the biosphere and tackle climate change.
Sentinel: Conservation X Labs’ Tool for Conservation
One of the organization’s tools is Sentinel, a technology designed to enhance the efficiency and impact of wildlife monitoring. Sentinel builds on the concept of camera traps, a widely used method in conservation, and elevates it to a new level through the incorporation of cutting-edge, artificial intelligence technology.
The Sentinel system is utilized for use cases like monitoring invasive species, addressing human-wildlife conflict, cost-effective ecological monitoring, and identifying zoonotic diseases.
“The Sentinel plugs into the SD card slot in camera traps and filters recorded images with Edge-AI models locally. Near real-time processing allows remote regions to be monitored and users may be alerted to identified specific animals, behaviors, diseases, and even poachers. This technology gives us near real-time information and increases efficiency for conservation organizations by over 1,000 times,” said Bunje.
Traditionally, conservationists retrieve SD cards from camera traps in remote locations, facing uncertainty about camera activity. They spend months reviewing hundreds to thousands of images for useful information. With Sentinels, this image processing is automated through machine vision, and users receive near real time insights via satellite communications. In 2024, Sentinels using LoRa and cellular networks will also be available, enabling rapid response to events in the wild.
Conservation X Labs also recently merged with software AI group, Wild Me, which specializes in harnessing machine vision for individual species identification. Wild Me will be able to bring this capacity to Sentinel to further improve the technology and offering.
“Sentinel allows us to change our fundamental economy and make it more sustainable while protecting species,” Dehgan notes. “It’s part of monitoring, reporting, verification (MRV) for companies to understand their impact on biodiversity and climate, and to change their suppliers and business practices to meet voluntary targets they’ve signed up for through the Task for Nature Based Financial Disclosures.” By integrating monitoring, reporting, and verification, Sentinel can help businesses in proactively aligning with voluntary targets, fostering a balance between economic prosperity and environmental responsibility.
Conservation X Labs’ Vision for Impacting Planetary Health
Conservation X Labs’ commitment to leveraging innovation and technology extends beyond Sentinel. Their work encompasses initiatives ranging from designing and running challenges which result in scalable solutions to major conservation problems – like small-scale gold mining in the Amazon and wildfire prevention in Western North America – to field-based conservation programs in the middle east protecting Big Cats.
The founders also highlighted the emergence of new interactions at the human-animal interface, particularly in agricultural practices. They stressed that the urgency lies not only in responding to these shifts but also in proactively forecasting and predicting these phenomena.
“You’ll see different pathogens now moving into other spaces as a result of shifts in climate and how that plays out in their habitat. So being able to not only respond to that, but to get ahead and predict how that might be happening is critical,” said Bunje. He drew parallels with the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the staggering economic and human costs incurred when merely reacting to the consequences of environmental degradation.
Both founders stressed that humans’ misuse of nature is propelling the emergence of pathogens and that there is the need to shift our approach in climate solutions and integrate planetary health concepts.
“We’re driving the emergence of pathogens through our misuse of nature. We need to think about how these pathogens arise from our actions,” said Dehgan. “We’re now looking at a space that no one else is really addressing, and no one else has the tools to address. This is a key part of how we can win against climate and global health and the extinction crisis.”
The integration of planetary health concepts involves recognizing that human activities drive the emergence of pathogens, and addressing these challenges necessitates a comprehensive approach that considers the interconnected effects of climate change, vector distribution, immune system impacts, and landscape changes.
The organization advocates for proactive measures to mitigate the financial and human toll associated with these environmental challenges, citing research that demonstrates the relatively low cost of prevention compared to the substantial economic losses and human suffering experienced during global health crises like COVID-19.
Conservation X Labs seeks not only to protect endangered species, but to also address the root causes of climate change and extinction on a more structural level. Stressing the importance of an optimistic approach, the founders envision a future where conservation is intertwined with economic transformation. We look forward to seeing how their journey evolves.
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