How ECP was born
ECP was galvanised into action to deliver innovative solutions to address acute conservation and animal welfare needs currently passing ‘under the radar’. ECP is underpinned by a blend of experience gained from decades of work across varied sectors, and inspired by the efforts of remarkable people doing and achieving remarkable things in difficult circumstances around the world, many of them people working against fierce odds, to aid threatened wildlife and animals in crisis. ECP sees the need to think outside the box for animals – and has derived novel understanding from efforts that work well to help those in need.
ECP was born from recognition of a pivotal issue and knowledge gap fundamentally impacting efforts to save endangered wildlife and animal welfare: In essence, amidst deep focus to help animals, no-one was really considering how to better empower the humans to do so – and the impact that holistic collaborative endeavour and better contextual understanding could make. For sure, love of animals just is not enough to help them. We need to empower people in order to do so – those who work with them and those who encounter them daily.
ECP harnesses optimism and empowered hope to fuel action. Our ethos sits alongside that of an increasing body of others who advocate the power of a positive, optimistic approach to address acute issues; one not fuelled by uninformed hope, but empowered by insight and expertise that are informed by real issues and deliver practical, positive solutions – in a user-friendly manner.
Wildlife face increasingly complex, urgent survival challenges from ever-present threats – loss and degradation of their habitat; over-exploitation due to unsustainable hunting, poaching or harvesting; pollution; invasive species; disease; and climate change. The situation for animal welfare is similar; age-old practices, societal and financial pressures, lack of education and access to veterinary facilities mean that companion animals and livestock face acute situations the world over.
Having repeatedly witnessed extraordinary, wide-ranging, multifaceted, impactful efforts that occur for threatened wildlife and other animals, against many odds, ECP’s Founder and Director set out to distil just what was enabling the success of these collaborations, where multiple parties spanning boundaries of all types – national, cultural and sectoral – unite for their cause.
In addition to decades of rich experience, ECP harnesses our leading knowledge of the phenomena that bind certain remarkable collaborative endeavours and fuel their collective action, incentivising and driving conservation efforts, on wide-ranging scale within and across nations, where regardless of mankind’s differences – cultural, religious, professional, societal or otherwise – neither physical nor non-physical boundaries, nor the backdrop of threats to wildlife, appear to impede.
This innovative approach is vital…
Whilst ECP is inspired by these remarkable collaborative efforts for animals, for countless threatened species and critical animal welfare situations, many worthy efforts are isolated. Sometimes, people simply do not know how to easily connect – or to maximise the potential of collaboration. Often, organisations act in a fragmented way, sometimes in competition with one another, sometimes people within teams and organisations are competing against, or not helping, each other – despite common goals. The upshot of this disconnected working is that, despite common goals, outcomes and impact for threatened species and animal welfare are not maximised. Worse still, some creatures in desperate need have little effort and little collective endeavour on their behalf at all.
Safety in Numbers – Joining the Dots
The complex, urgent challenges faced by wildlife and domestic animals demand innovative strategies, extensive exchange of diverse knowledge – and linkage and collaboration across multiple stakeholders hailing from very diverse backgrounds. For example, threatened species inhabit land regardless of, and spanning, national boundaries, and multiple societal differences and cultures. Effort on their behalf, thus, needs input from – and sensitivity to – manifold perspectives. Biodiversity conservation requires the investment of eclectic effort from multiple parties from many diverse sources across a global theatre.
Therein lies the next point. The array of threats to wildlife and domestic animals are intricately linked to multiple, complex social, political and economic human factors – problems so intricate and multi-layered that they are extremely difficult to solve. The human dimensions are pivotal to success of all endeavours – no matter the scale or situation, yet these vital areas are often-overlooked.
Threatened species and critical welfare situations acutely need collaboration to maximise outcomes. Collaboration – to bring synergy – strengths that are larger than the sum of the individual parts. Not just collaboration, but wider collaboration, pushing boundaries, to bring new tools, new perspectives, new partners.
A sea change is crucially-needed to aid conservation and animal welfare outcomes. By considering the ‘people-side of conservation and animal welfare, outcomes can be much more impactful. This is easier said than done. Understandably, in animal welfare and conservation of threatened species, the focus is on the animals – far more rarely are the human dimensions of considered. Indeed, until recently, knowledge in this sphere has been limited.
ECP has specialist knowledge to empower effective, impactful outcomes by delivering leading expertise on the human dimensions of collaborative endeavour for animals.
ECP’s solutions and approach
ECP addresses the urgent need for understanding and action to improve the human side of animal-related work; to empower personnel, build more impactful working relationships and unite diverse parties in impactful collaborative action to achieve common goals.
ECP has leading expertise of the human dimensions of collaboration – and of the mechanisms by which eclectic, successful, visionary conservation and animal welfare partnerships are established and work collaboratively in collective action. These concepts help multiple parties -spanning multiple boundaries, cultures and backgrounds – cohese into trusting, reciprocal collaborative partnerships and operate effective collective action to achieve mutually-beneficial goals.
Uniting in collaborative partnerships brings many benefits, not just enabling partners to better achieve their goals through pooling skills and resources and bringing new perspectives – but also enriching the people themselves, so they and their outcomes are ongoingly empowered. ECP’s deep insight shows how to generate positive interactions between individuals – and how this ripples out to benefit the wider perspective of collaborative action to empower conservation and animal welfare.
ECP pioneers a new strategic protocol – a new best practice for collaboration. Driven by ‘real-world’ needs, ECP’s Conceptual Framework delivers recommendations to improve multi-party working. ECP delivers leading knowledge of behavioural mechanisms that are pivotal to cross-sector, multi-background collaboration. ECP also signposts key ways to harness everyday processes and situations – practical to strategic – as accessible opportunities to empower collaborative working and outcomes, build diverse partnerships, and galvanise holistic collective action to reach shared goals. Numerous organisations from varied sectors, globally, request these recommendations.
ECP has novel understanding of key routes which can be readily harnessed to galvanise, enhance and empower co-working and collaborative action for animals.
Collaboration, innovation and an open mind-set are key to foster new opportunities
In addition to pioneering the collaborative framework, ECP recognises that conservation and animal welfare work is also empowered by embracing a highly diverse array of parties and effort, including novel parties and contributions from backgrounds not previously associated with conservation and animal welfare – and, from parties commonly-recognised within the arenas, diversification to offer innovative contributions.
We believe diversity to be a key element of collective endeavour – looking wider, to more eclectic sources for collaborative partners and sources of guidance to maximise talent and impactful action. ECP believes in broadening traditional boundaries, developing and nurturing collaborative networks between practice, academia, private sector, policy-making institutions – and communities and individuals; integrating expertise and skills from commonly-recognised and unusual conservation and animal welfare parties within innovative, effective, cross-sector collective action.
ECP’s expertise promotes key pathways to widen conservation and animal welfare alliances, empowering collaborative efforts for animals; refusing to see any differences – social, cultural, geographic, economic, political, religious, professional or other – as boundaries, to collectively invest in an ethos and mission.
ECP works with parties to develop and deliver innovative, inclusive partnership solutions, deeply valuing the specific expertise of all collaborators – harnessing an array of attributes to drive forward collaborative endeavours. ECP offers a unique perspective on the building of cross-sector, multi-background, multi-party collaborative partnerships in biodiversity conservation and animal welfare.
In conclusion
ECP advocates an optimistic positively-framed approach, empowering people in collaborative action, fuelling them to achieve their goals. ECP’s impactful approach catalyses timely, relevant solutions, highlighting key collaborative pathways and promoting new best practice for human-related aspects of animal-related work. Our approach is underpinned by decades of experience, informed by diverse perspectives and parties from all backgrounds and sectors around the world, including many involved in exemplary conservation and animal welfare effort, and by scientifically-robust social science research informed by real conservation issues.
In a practical user-friendly manner, ECP shows key concepts to build and harness key human resources that lead to a tipping point that moves collaborative endeavour along a positive path – pivotal knowledge that can aid the many species and situations currently passing ‘under the radar’ with respect to collaborative effort.
ECP not only provides framework for practitioners of all sorts in animal welfare and conservation, but also transferable knowledge to aid partnership-building and globalised collective action embracing multiple backgrounds, cultures, sectors in many disciplines and theatres. ECP’s leading expertise in collaboration and partnership working can be widely utilised on ‘wicked’ problems with complex international dimensions. ECP’s approach can underpin sustainability of collaborative endeavours, galvanising behaviour change and impactful outcomes.
Conservation and animal welfare sees the exchange of many resources between diverse individuals and organisations – however, the key interpersonal resources on which ECP focusses are perhaps the most fundamental of all – they can be an extraordinary fuel to collaborative endeavour: a fuel whose costs are far exceeded by the benefits they bring and which in use are not consumed, but replenished exponentially – enabling their impact to be potentially boundless.
The ECP perspective is a holistic one, which considers how each person in a collective impacts the other, no matter their background – conservation worker, herder, politician, academic – showing how each can empower the other to strengthen overall efforts, no matter the societal background – building key resources by refusing to see any differences – social, cultural, geographic, economic, political, religious, professional or other – as boundaries. Numerous people, in their daily lives, are uniquely placed to enhance wide-ranging effort – and better equipped to do so if their own capacity is empowered. Each individual is critical and unique. ECP shows pathways by which we can engage and empower all who are willing in collaborative endeavour to aid threatened species and animal welfare, aiding each other – and beyond.
We are humbled that numerous organisations and individuals, globally, from diverse backgrounds and sectors, ask for our recommendations. This is highly encouraging. Working together, we strive to help the conservation and animal welfare movement benefit from nurturing efforts to more diligently help human interactions – supporting and empowering people to build good relationships – so that we can holistically empower outcomes for animals.
Empowering Collaborative Partnerships 