The USFWS species conservation catalyst fund is a unique opportunity to build both a systemic understanding of the drivers and leverage points for saiga use and trade, and to build a foundation for…

The USFWS species conservation catalyst fund is a unique opportunity to build both a systemic understanding of the drivers and leverage points for saiga use and trade, and to build a foundation for long term collaborative networks to implement, and adaptively manage, conservation actions this will work best if all the stakeholders collaborate together to ensure that they maximise opportunities for synergy and learning across countries, stages in the supply chain, and stakeholder types funding for species conservation is often dispersed on a project by project basis, and awardees focus on fulfilling their own aims and meeting their deliverables thereby losing the opportunity to engage across projects, and to learn from each other additionally, short term project funding can lead to excellent results but new evidence can be kept within the team itself, so opportunities are lost to use IT as a foundation for ongoing learning and evidence generation by the broader conservation community finally, investment in capacity building for team members is vital however, opportunities to extend this investment beyond the project team to support people in other countries, sectors, and parts of the supply chain, are not always grasped thereby limiting the extent of its impact there s an opportunity to do things differently for saigas the species is unusual because IT has a particularly active and tight knit international community of researchers and conservationists, who have worked together for some years under the convention on migratory species MOU on saiga conservation the saiga conservation alliance has been at the heart of these collaborations since 2006 our project goal is to be the glue that holds the USFWS saiga portfolio together and that makes IT more than the SUM of its parts, addressing the issues with project based funding identified above this will maximise the legacy of USFWS s investment in saiga conservation, and provide a lasting forum for whole supply chain collaboration, a dynamic repository for knowledge on saiga conservation action, and build the capacity of a new generation of saiga conservation experts within and across countries and sectors our objectives are 1 to bring together actors working on saiga conservation along the whole supply chain, in a sustainable, inclusive network which identifies and addresses evidence gaps in an integrated way 2 to provide support for knowledge generation, curation, and dissemination to anyone working for saiga conservation, ensuring that the evidence generated is accessible to all 3 to enable learning and capability building across saiga projects, geographies and sectors, maximising synergies between projects and building a cadre of trained conservationists 4 to catalyse new collaborations and strengthen existing collaborations, across the whole supply chain, to ensure an ongoing and vibrant legacy for the USFWS investment our activities will support other projects and provide added value our evidence GAP analysis, theory of change, horizon scan, and bringing together of insights across projects and across scales and locations of saiga product supply chains, will support learning our dissemination of results including via the saiga resource centre, saiga news, briefing documents will support sharing our funding for exchanges and joint training will support network building and capability building this project is geared towards producing a sustainable legacy of enhanced saiga conservation status, and an ongoing collaborative network to continue the work catalysed by the USFWS investment we aim to influence and improve policy and practice during the project period itself, but also to leave a legacy of enhanced understanding of where evidence gaps remain, what threats and opportunities exist on the horizon, and what key actions need to be taken, and by whom, in order to secure the future of the saiga antelope