Hello David, I think we're on the same page! I especially agree about the reluctance to give up field work (which is gratifying day-to-day) for bureaucratic/policy/maybe-this-will-change-the-world-in-fifteen-years work. I suffered from that reluctance for some time. Really hard to give up working with elephants.
I'm a conservation scientist and ecologist with an interest in making conservation more about the quality of animal (including all human, not just elites) life.
I broadly agree with your theory of change: ruminants (and actually animal-sourced foods broadly) provide an area of shared interests between the conservation and effective altruism communities. My organization (Conservation X Labs, or CXL) is trying to do work very much along the lines of what you’ve described. We are partnering with several conservation NGOs and the Good Food Institute (whose new CEO, Nigel Sizer, is a biodiversity guy) to elevate alternative proteins as a biodiversity tool. CXL’s specialty is open innovation, prizes and challenges for conservation. We’ve just been awarded a grant to develop criteria for The Perfect Protein Prize, which—if funded—could incentivize innovators across relevant sectors to develop protein ingredients that can help achieve taste and cost parity. It would also involve a major media campaign placing alternative proteins at the heart of conservation. And we’re starting a brand new (and currently unfunded) effort to get a major institution that moves lots of resources for sustainable development to see the alternative proteins industry as an actionable investment. If any of this interests you or others on this forum, I’m happy to chat! [email protected].
That said, I do think moving a big chunk of the $121B going into conservation at present (as proposed in the post) involves complexities that aren’t immediately apparent. (Disclaimer: I haven’t dug deep into where that stat comes from: the following is based mostly on my experience, ~20 years in the conservation world). First, conservation institutions are already aware of alternative proteins. WWF has a report on plant-based meats, and the IUCN included cultivated meat/fermentation as a potential biodiversity-benefiting technology in their documents on synthetic biology. The lack of support so far is about politics and culture, not lack of awareness. There is also generally quite a bit of inertia in conservation, in part because it’s a pretty decentralized field built on diverse objectives. My understanding is that a lot of the $121B going to conservation is actually government budgets going to support national parks and related wildlife management work; these protected areas were established through decades of lobbying of various governments that don’t adhere to a central mandate, and PAs are now popular with middle class citizens and the tourism industry worldwide. I assume getting broad support for alternative proteins would similarly require more than a few EAs at a few conservation conferences—it will require a lot of folks in lots of capitol buildings over a long period. Finally, I (and CXL) believe conservationists are not really trained to think about technology and major transformations as a force for good. Conservationists are trained to value that which is “natural” (minimal/selective human interference), and we spend a lot of our time around local/indigenous peoples whose traditional, historically sustainable ways of life are under siege by modernity. It makes sense to be skeptical that food being produced in a sterile factory in some big city is going to make life better for the people and animals that have historically been left behind by centralized development models.
So—I think there should absolutely be an alliance between EAs and conservationists on animal-sourced foods and alternative proteins. But I think the conservation sector may not embrace APs as quickly as we would like, for what I think are both good and bad reasons.
My op-ed on why de-extinction of mammoths, at least, is a bad idea: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/editorial-mammoth-de-extinction-is-bad-conservation/
I live in DC and so am super excited about your work here! Our ANC commissioner has mentioned working with DC Voters for Animals to manage rats in our neighborhood and I've tried to get our building involved. Please feel free to connect directly if it's helpful: [email protected]
Regarding avoiding duplication: yes, our prize would be open to whoever can meet the criteria we establish around efficacy, palatability, welfare, sustainability, and cost, irrespective of whether the technology is new or not. So if an existing product can be shown to meet these criteria, then they would win. Of course, we are establishing criteria that we believe (i) are necessary for the tech to achieve conservation outcomes in the island setting, (ii) no existing product has been shown to achieve as of yet, and (iii) are technically attainable. So even if an existing product wins, we assume it would have to be improved in order to do so. This improvement-- plus validation of effectiveness from a third party-- should help us get closer to an applicable product that consumers believe in.
So we definitely appreciate Dr. Mayer's efforts, but we are yet to see rigorous peer-reviewed evidence that the interventions associated with her work are effective, and field implementation has not been designed in such a way that allows experts to isolate the effects of contraceptives from rodenticides. Some cities have already suspended their implementation of these contraceptives out of concerns that they are ineffective. It is certainly possible that these interventions work-- but even then, there is almost certainly room for improvement (particularly for the island conservation context), which our open innovation program could help facilitate. Finally, given that any fertility control intervention will exert heavy selection pressures on rodents to evolve resistance, having multiple tools is likely necessary for lasting success.
Hello everyone-- I have a brief update: since posting this, I have received a number of positive indications and inquiries. If the behavior of other donors is relevant to your decision making, feel free to reach out and I can provide more information on our current fundraising status. That said, there is a lot we could do with even more funding beyond the amount requested here, so any additional donations would not be wasted.
Thanks Kestrel! We did submit an application there as well. But since, as you noted, our budget is a bit on the high side (and, obviously, all applications are uncertain), we thought it would be prudent to post here as well.
I appreciate Cam putting the potential benefits of this work so effectively and succinctly.
I do want to add one thing here though: the plant-based policy at CXL, as well as the interest in this work, is not just a function of me-- it's a function of CXL. My colleagues are excited by the idea of finding win-wins for biodiversity and animal well-being, presenting what to me is a unique opportunity to help bring animal welfare concerns into mainstream conservation.
Hey Toby, yes I have! They declined to fund this but, due to the volume of applications they are dealing with post-merger, they were unable to make time to explain why.
Hello David, I think we're on the same page! I especially agree about the reluctance to give up field work (which is gratifying day-to-day) for bureaucratic/policy/maybe-this-will-change-the-world-in-fifteen-years work. I suffered from that reluctance for some time. Really hard to give up working with elephants.
Hello David et al.,
I'm a conservation scientist and ecologist with an interest in making conservation more about the quality of animal (including all human, not just elites) life.
I broadly agree with your theory of change: ruminants (and actually animal-sourced foods broadly) provide an area of shared interests between the conservation and effective altruism communities. My organization (Conservation X Labs, or CXL) is trying to do work very much along the lines of what you’ve described. We are partnering with several conservation NGOs and the Good Food Institute (whose new CEO, Nigel Sizer, is a biodiversity guy) to elevate alternative proteins as a biodiversity tool. CXL’s specialty is open innovation, prizes and challenges for conservation. We’ve just been awarded a grant to develop criteria for The Perfect Protein Prize, which—if funded—could incentivize innovators across relevant sectors to develop protein ingredients that can help achieve taste and cost parity. It would also involve a major media campaign placing alternative proteins at the heart of conservation. And we’re starting a brand new (and currently unfunded) effort to get a major institution that moves lots of resources for sustainable development to see the alternative proteins industry as an actionable investment. If any of this interests you or others on this forum, I’m happy to chat! [email protected].
That said, I do think moving a big chunk of the $121B going into conservation at present (as proposed in the post) involves complexities that aren’t immediately apparent. (Disclaimer: I haven’t dug deep into where that stat comes from: the following is based mostly on my experience, ~20 years in the conservation world). First, conservation institutions are already aware of alternative proteins. WWF has a report on plant-based meats, and the IUCN included cultivated meat/fermentation as a potential biodiversity-benefiting technology in their documents on synthetic biology. The lack of support so far is about politics and culture, not lack of awareness. There is also generally quite a bit of inertia in conservation, in part because it’s a pretty decentralized field built on diverse objectives. My understanding is that a lot of the $121B going to conservation is actually government budgets going to support national parks and related wildlife management work; these protected areas were established through decades of lobbying of various governments that don’t adhere to a central mandate, and PAs are now popular with middle class citizens and the tourism industry worldwide. I assume getting broad support for alternative proteins would similarly require more than a few EAs at a few conservation conferences—it will require a lot of folks in lots of capitol buildings over a long period. Finally, I (and CXL) believe conservationists are not really trained to think about technology and major transformations as a force for good. Conservationists are trained to value that which is “natural” (minimal/selective human interference), and we spend a lot of our time around local/indigenous peoples whose traditional, historically sustainable ways of life are under siege by modernity. It makes sense to be skeptical that food being produced in a sterile factory in some big city is going to make life better for the people and animals that have historically been left behind by centralized development models.
So—I think there should absolutely be an alliance between EAs and conservationists on animal-sourced foods and alternative proteins. But I think the conservation sector may not embrace APs as quickly as we would like, for what I think are both good and bad reasons.
My op-ed on why de-extinction of mammoths, at least, is a bad idea: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/editorial-mammoth-de-extinction-is-bad-conservation/
Hello!
I live in DC and so am super excited about your work here! Our ANC commissioner has mentioned working with DC Voters for Animals to manage rats in our neighborhood and I've tried to get our building involved. Please feel free to connect directly if it's helpful: [email protected]
Regarding avoiding duplication: yes, our prize would be open to whoever can meet the criteria we establish around efficacy, palatability, welfare, sustainability, and cost, irrespective of whether the technology is new or not. So if an existing product can be shown to meet these criteria, then they would win. Of course, we are establishing criteria that we believe (i) are necessary for the tech to achieve conservation outcomes in the island setting, (ii) no existing product has been shown to achieve as of yet, and (iii) are technically attainable. So even if an existing product wins, we assume it would have to be improved in order to do so. This improvement-- plus validation of effectiveness from a third party-- should help us get closer to an applicable product that consumers believe in.
Hey Aaron,
So we definitely appreciate Dr. Mayer's efforts, but we are yet to see rigorous peer-reviewed evidence that the interventions associated with her work are effective, and field implementation has not been designed in such a way that allows experts to isolate the effects of contraceptives from rodenticides. Some cities have already suspended their implementation of these contraceptives out of concerns that they are ineffective. It is certainly possible that these interventions work-- but even then, there is almost certainly room for improvement (particularly for the island conservation context), which our open innovation program could help facilitate. Finally, given that any fertility control intervention will exert heavy selection pressures on rodents to evolve resistance, having multiple tools is likely necessary for lasting success.
Hello everyone-- I have a brief update: since posting this, I have received a number of positive indications and inquiries. If the behavior of other donors is relevant to your decision making, feel free to reach out and I can provide more information on our current fundraising status. That said, there is a lot we could do with even more funding beyond the amount requested here, so any additional donations would not be wasted.
Thanks for the vote of confidence!
Thanks Kestrel! We did submit an application there as well. But since, as you noted, our budget is a bit on the high side (and, obviously, all applications are uncertain), we thought it would be prudent to post here as well.
I appreciate Cam putting the potential benefits of this work so effectively and succinctly.
I do want to add one thing here though: the plant-based policy at CXL, as well as the interest in this work, is not just a function of me-- it's a function of CXL. My colleagues are excited by the idea of finding win-wins for biodiversity and animal well-being, presenting what to me is a unique opportunity to help bring animal welfare concerns into mainstream conservation.
Hey Toby, yes I have! They declined to fund this but, due to the volume of applications they are dealing with post-merger, they were unable to make time to explain why.
Thanks for the suggestion.