NEW ONLINE COURSE: Facilitation for Wildlife Conservation
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Adam Barlow
Jun 25, 2026, 4:36:07 AMJun 25
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Dear colleagues,
Conservation has become a deeply collaborative endeavour. Protecting a landscape, recovering a species, or securing a community's relationship with its natural resources rarely happens through the work of one organisation or one discipline. It happens through partnerships, multi-stakeholder processes, community consultations, and joint planning sessions, all of which depend on the ability to bring diverse groups of people together and help them work toward shared outcomes.
Facilitation is the skill that makes that possible, and it is one that conservation training has not always taken seriously enough.
WildTeam has just released Facilitation for Wildlife Conservation, a course built around a best practice framework designed specifically for conservation contexts. We wanted to share it with this community.
The course is grounded in three core principles. The first is process authority: the ability to guide how a group works together without controlling what it decides, which is what allows facilitators to hold space for genuine participation rather than managed consensus. The second is neutrality: managing your own influence as a facilitator so that all perspectives receive fair consideration, including those from communities and groups who are less accustomed to being heard. The third is embracing complexity: helping groups engage with the real dimensions of a conservation challenge rather than retreating to solutions that are simpler than the problem.
Two skill domains run through the course. Building the base covers preparation, creating collaborative environments, developing shared understanding across groups with different knowledge and values, and preventing and resolving conflict. Exploring possibilities covers the skills needed to help diverse groups navigate complex challenges and make strategic choices together.
The techniques throughout are drawn from real conservation situations, including managing power imbalances between local communities and government agencies, working across cultural and language barriers, and facilitating in both in-person and online settings.
The course is available HERE. Bursaries are available for practitioners who need one, and every paying participant funds access for someone who could not otherwise afford it through our one-for-one bursary model.
Best wishes,
Adam Barlow
Executive Director, WildTeam
Conservation has become a deeply collaborative endeavour. Protecting a landscape, recovering a species, or securing a community's relationship with its natural resources rarely happens through the work of one organisation or one discipline. It happens through partnerships, multi-stakeholder processes, community consultations, and joint planning sessions, all of which depend on the ability to bring diverse groups of people together and help them work toward shared outcomes.
Facilitation is the skill that makes that possible, and it is one that conservation training has not always taken seriously enough.
WildTeam has just released Facilitation for Wildlife Conservation, a course built around a best practice framework designed specifically for conservation contexts. We wanted to share it with this community.
The course is grounded in three core principles. The first is process authority: the ability to guide how a group works together without controlling what it decides, which is what allows facilitators to hold space for genuine participation rather than managed consensus. The second is neutrality: managing your own influence as a facilitator so that all perspectives receive fair consideration, including those from communities and groups who are less accustomed to being heard. The third is embracing complexity: helping groups engage with the real dimensions of a conservation challenge rather than retreating to solutions that are simpler than the problem.
Two skill domains run through the course. Building the base covers preparation, creating collaborative environments, developing shared understanding across groups with different knowledge and values, and preventing and resolving conflict. Exploring possibilities covers the skills needed to help diverse groups navigate complex challenges and make strategic choices together.
The techniques throughout are drawn from real conservation situations, including managing power imbalances between local communities and government agencies, working across cultural and language barriers, and facilitating in both in-person and online settings.
The course is available HERE. Bursaries are available for practitioners who need one, and every paying participant funds access for someone who could not otherwise afford it through our one-for-one bursary model.
Best wishes,
Adam Barlow
Executive Director, WildTeam
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