Gretchen C. Daily

The Natural Capital Project (NatCap) aims to align economic forces with conservation.

The Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) was established by Prof. Paul R. Ehrlich in the Department of Biology at Stanford University in 1984 and is directed by Prof. Gretchen C. Daily. In pursuit of its mission, the CCB conducts interdisciplinary research to build a sound basis for the conservation, management, and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services, to evaluate factors that are leading to declining environmental security and increasing inequity, and to find practical solutions to that predicament. Our research integrates biological and natural sciences with economic, anthropological, institutional, and other social science perspectives. The CCB’s scientific research addresses both broad and highly specific problems, such as finding ways to enhance the capacity of human dominated landscapes to supply benefits to society, fostering understanding of species’ extinction susceptibility, providing tools to predict human impacts on ecosystem services, and developing an integrated theory of cultural evolution. The CCB’s policy research focuses on “big picture” issues, including characterizing the impacts on the environment of human population growth and patterns of consumption, the role of equity in sustaining environmental quality, the influence of human activities on the epidemiological environment, and how cultural evolution works and can be redirected toward preserving biodiversity and providing a sustainable society. A major portion of the CCB’s effort is aimed at communicating the results of our research beyond the scientific community to conservation practitioners (e.g., reserve managers and land planners), to the private sector and government, and to the public at large.

The Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment is working toward a future in which societies meet people’s needs for water, food, health and other vital services while protecting and nurturing the planet. As the university's hub of interdisciplinary environment and sustainability research, the Stanford Woods Institute is the go-to place for Stanford faculty, researchers and students to collaborate on environmental research. Their interdisciplinary work crosses sectors and disciplines, advancing solutions to the most critical, complex environmental and sustainability challenges.