BirdLife International, UNEP-WCMC, RSPB and the Department of Zoology, University of
Cambridge, were supported by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative Collaborative Fund to implement a project entitled ‘Assessing conservation costs in support of the CBD Strategic Plan’ during 1 July 2011 to 31 October 2012. The project also involved collaborators at the University of Copenhagen, World Wildlife Fund, Charles Darwin University, University of Hawai`i, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, New Zealand Department of Conservation, and University of Freiburg. The project aimed to assess the financial costs of conservation actions needed to meet Aichi Targets 11 (preventing extinctions and conserving threatened species) and 12 (expanding and effectively managing protected areas), under the strategic goal ‘To improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity’, building initially on data for birds, the best known class of organisms.