Snow Leopard (Panthera Uncia) Photo Credits: Andyworks from Getty Images Signature
Partner Organisation: Conservation X Labs
Location: Global
Rewilding is as much about letting Nature heal as it is about actively involving people in that process. Our new Alliance Partner, Conservation X Labs (CXL), embraces the wildness of people’s imaginations to think of innovative solutions that will help prevent the sixth mass extinction.
CXL sees in each person a potential idea that can help find sustainable solutions. They use a variety of open innovation methods, like prizes and challenges and crowdsourcing, to cast a net large and wide to solve conservation problems. Through defining the complex problems that we collectively face in terms that anyone can understand, they encourage wider participation.
Photo Credits: Conservation X Labs
There is no need for scientific, engineering or institutional credentials; in this space we all work together using our talents and abilities to create innovative solutions. CXL offers a cash prize to the most innovative solution – “anyone can become an innovator even though they aren’t scientists”. Due to these methods, where people and nature work together, the process has produced winners like these. This has brought up solutions where people and Nature work together such as Patch Healing (Peru), which brings access to regenerative medicine in remote Amazonian communities. Or even a prototype protein fibre developed by Grouse Fiber that uses local feedstocks.
Photo Credits: Conservation X Labs
Managing and living with fire: a global call
The latest CXL challenge is around how we manage and live with fire. Through their Fire Grand Challenge, a global call for groundbreaking solutions, they’re tackling one of the planet’s most urgent crises: devastating wildfires. The selected 12 finalists aren’t just ideas – they’re diverse, action-ready teams of engineers, ecologists, Indigenous leaders, and tech innovators, each bringing unique expertise to the wildfire crisis.
Over the next nine months, these teams will rigorously test their solutions in real-world conditions: deploying AI fire-detection algorithms in vulnerable forests, trialing bio-based fire retardants in drought zones, integrating Indigenous burning practices with satellite monitoring and more. This isn’t just experimentation – it’s a sprint to refine tools that could redefine how we coexist with fire in an era of climate change. By blending tech, tradition, and teamwork, the Fire Grand challenge proves that the best defense against wildfires is human ingenuity – and a whole lot of determination. Follow the journey of the 12 finalists.
Snow Leopard in Kyrgyzstan. Photo credit: Ilbris Foundation:CXL
Protecting iconic species in Central Asia
Innovative solutions, testing technology in all its shapes and forms and finding ambitious ways forward are a main focus for our partner. In addition to leveraging these open innovation techniques, CXL is working hard to help set up new protected areas and other effective area based conservation measures (OECMs) in Central Asia and protect two of the most iconic species that represent them: the Persian and the Snow leopard.
In these vast and remote landscapes of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan the Conservation X Labs Central Asia team and partners Ilbirs Foundation, Biodiversity Research and Conservation Center, the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, Team Bars Turkmenistan and Mert, work with governments, and local communities and in the process leverage cutting-edge science and technology to protect Persian and snow leopards.
Snow Leopard in Kyrgyzstan. Photo credit- Ilbris Foundation/CXL
Persian leopard on Uly Balkan in Turkmenistan. Photo Credits: © Team Bars Turkmenistan:CXL
It’s amazing to witness just how many solutions exist when the barriers to participation are reduced and we let our imaginations run wild. With Conservation X Labs as our Alliance Partner, we’re looking forward to discovering solutions that are actively restoring our world’s ecosystems – for people and planet.