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The Sansom Conservation Leadership Alumni Fund (SCLA Fund) was established through the generous support of Robert Sansom to enable alumni of the University of Cambridge Master’s in Conservation Leadership to deliver high-impact conservation projects around the world.Administered by the Master’s in Conservation Leadership team in the Department of G…

As part of the MPhil in Conservation Leadership, Maritza McCudden completed a professional placement with Fauna & Flora focused on how connection to place and belonging can strengthen people-centered conservation. Conservation has often relied on regulatory, educational, or incentive-based approaches. While valuable, these strategies can overlook t…

During his placement with Fauna & Flora, Eko Chalim worked on evaluating and improving the UK Internship Programme. This meant critically examining how the programme supports diversity and access and identifying where barriers still exist. Coming from Indonesia, Eko had to adapt to a different cultural and professional context. He learnt that "unde…

What if the most reviled creatures on Earth could speak for themselves? This question drove Michael Akrasi, a student from Ghana in the Cambridge Masters in Conservation Leadership, to explore an innovative approach during his professional placement. Working with Nature Perspectives, a pioneering organisation founded by Cambridge alumni to enable m…

Two ongoing conservation projects supported by the Sansom Conservation Leadership Alumni Fund have reported progress on their initial objectives, demonstrating the diverse approaches alumni are taking to address environmental challenges through community engagement and policy development.  The Kumisi Lake restoration project in Georgia has establis…

A community-based conservation project in Zimbabwe has established a successful model for reducing human-elephant conflict through local training and employment, supported by the Sansom Conservation Leadership Alumni Fund. The initiative, led by Conservation Leadership alumnus Rory Wilson working with eleCREW, trained local residents in the Sekebel…

For conservation professional Candeze Mongaya from the Philippines, a three-month MPhil in Conservation Leadership placement with the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) offered a rare chance to step inside one of the world’s leading boundary organizations and ask: what does transformative change look like from…

The University of Cambridge Masters in Conservation Leadership has been selected to join the Global Environment Facility's Fonseca Leadership Program, a prestigious international initiative supporting the next generation of conservation leaders from around the world.The Masters in Conservation Leadership, based in Cambridge's Department of Geograph…

When Aditi Patil and Sandeep Sharma graduated from Cambridge's MPhil in Conservation Leadership in 2023, they shared a conviction that traditional conservation approaches needed a radical rethink. Eighteen months later, they've proven that some of the most effective conservation education happens not in lecture halls or through poster campaigns, bu…

How a simple question in a Cambridge lecture room led to an extraordinary conversation about the future of our planet What began as an engaging discussion in Professor Bhaskar Vira's natural capital lectures has culminated in one of the most significant conservation conversations of the year. On 28th July 2025, the David Attenborough Building welco…

The 2024-25 MPhil Conservation Leadership cohort recently organised a focused academic exchange with the University of Oxford, demonstrating the programme's continued commitment to fostering peer-to-peer learning and professional networking across institutions.The day-long visit brought together 18 students from multiple Cambridge programmes—includ…

MPhil in Conservation Leadership student Phoebe Ndiema shares insights at the 24th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous IssuesPhoebe Ndiema, an MPhil in Conservation Leadership student at the University of Cambridge, recently participated in the 24th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in New York.            …

The Masters in Conservation Leadership at the University of Cambridge offers a unique opportunity to put your skills into practice with our Professional Placement.From May to August, current cohort students will work alongside experienced professionals at a leading conservation organisation, tackling a carefully designed project that addresses a cr…

The Conservation Leadership Lecture (CLL) series for the 2024-25 academic year concluded with an insightful presentation by Mark Infield, a distinguished conservation practitioner with more than 30 years of experience across Africa, Asia and Europe.The lecture, hosted at Darwin College, provided Masters in Conservation Leadership students with valu…

The University of Cambridge's Masters in Conservation Leadership programme recently continued its long-standing tradition of field learning with a visit to the National Trust's Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve, England's most famous fen and the Trust's very first nature reserve.This year's cohort of international conservation professionals had th…