Rare applies behavioral science for conservation across 100+ countries, training local leaders to design community-led campaigns that shift human behavior from resource extraction to environmental stewardship.
Most conservation organizations focus on what people are doing wrong. Rare focuses on why. Founded on the premise that every major environmental challenge traces back to human behavior, the Arlington, Virginia-based nonprofit pairs social science with ecological expertise to change how communities interact with the natural systems sustaining them. The result is lasting shifts where local people become environmental stewards rather than remaining resource extractors.
“The most urgent environmental challenges of our time have one thing in common: to solve them, people have to start behaving differently,” explained CEO Brett Jenks. That conviction drives behavioral science for conservation into territories where traditional approaches, such as regulations, fines, and protected area boundaries, often fail because they ignore the motivations of the people living closest to threatened ecosystems.
Rare’s signature methodology originated from an unlikely source. In the 1980s, conservationist Paul Butler—working with St. Lucia’s forestry department—developed a social marketing campaign to save the Saint Lucia parrot from extinction. Rather than enforcing prohibitions, Butler made the parrot a source of national pride. Communities that once hunted the bird began protecting it because they saw it as uniquely theirs. The species recovered. That insight, pride drives protection, became Rare’s founding principle.
Pride and insights from behavioral science remain key to Rare’s work with communities. In 2017, Rare launched its Center for Behavior & the Environment, which merges behavioral insights with conservation design, identifying specific barriers to sustainable practices and crafting interventions that address them directly.
This behavioral science-for-conservation approach produces measurable results. Rare tracks every project through statistically valid measurements, including changes in public awareness, shifts in public opinion, behavioral adoption rates, and measurable threat reduction. If the threat is overfishing, they measure catch data. If it’s deforestation, they track forest cover. The rigor ensures programs demonstrate impact rather than merely claiming it.
Rare’s Fish Forever program, the world’s largest coastal fishery recovery effort, exemplifies the model at scale. Launched in 2012, the program centers on a marine conservation tool called “managed access plus reserves.” Local fishers receive exclusive access to local waters while no-take reserves allow marine life to recover. Rare builds community support for sustainable fisheries management through Pride campaigns that promote sustainable fishing practices rather than impose external restrictions.
Fish Forever, the world’s largest coastal fishery recovery effort, uses managed access and reserves, supported by behavioral science, for conservation campaigns, with data from 41 sites showing doubled fish populations and the Coastal 500 initiative surpassing 500 local leaders worldwide. Photo courtesy of Rare.
Today, Rare is expanding its impact through policy frameworks that enable community-led conservation, innovative finance tools that drive capital to the frontlines of conservation, and networks that enable adoption to spread. One example is the Coastal 500 initiative, which surpassed its goal of engaging 500 local leaders championing sustainable fisheries management worldwide.
Behavioral science for conservation extends beyond oceans through Lands for Life, Rare’s climate-smart agriculture program. The initiative empowers farmers to adopt sustainable practices that simultaneously protect watersheds, reduce emissions, and improve yields. Rather than prescribing techniques, the program identifies what prevents farmers from adopting practices they already know would help and designs interventions to remove those specific barriers.
Innovative finance represents Rare’s latest frontier. The Meloy Fund extends the organization’s model into the for-profit sector, demonstrating that conservation and economic returns can align. By financing sustainable fisheries and agricultural enterprises in developing nations, the fund creates market incentives that reinforce behavioral changes initiated by Pride campaigns.
Rare increasingly integrates artificial intelligence into community-led conservation and climate resilience efforts. AI tools help analyze behavioral data, optimize campaign targeting, and monitor ecosystem health at scales that are impossible to achieve through manual observation alone. Technology amplifies rather than replaces community leadership.
The organization’s global footprint reflects decades of a consistent approach. People trained in behavior-centered design for conservation now work across more than 100 countries. Programs directly benefit 3.2 million people through improved fishing, farming, and conservation practices. Community-led conservation spans 356,000 square kilometers across land and sea.
What distinguishes behavioral science for conservation from conventional approaches is its fundamental respect for local communities. Rare doesn’t arrive with predetermined solutions. The organization listens to what communities need, understands what prevents sustainable behavior, and designs interventions that communities themselves lead. Local leaders own campaigns. Local mascots represent local species. Local pride drives local protection.
See also: Indigenous Approaches to Healing the Mind-Nature Divide Offer New Pathways
The approach challenges a persistent assumption in environmental work, that people harm nature because they don’t care. Rare’s experience across 100+ countries demonstrates the opposite. Communities care deeply. They simply face barriers, such as economic pressure, lack of alternatives, insufficient information, and social norms favoring extraction that behavioral science for conservation identifies and removes. When barriers fall, stewardship rises naturally because protecting nature aligns with protecting livelihoods, culture, and community identity.
Rare’s model suggests that conservation’s greatest untapped resource isn’t technology, funding, or protected-area expansion. It’s understanding human behavior well enough to design systems in which protecting nature becomes the easiest, most rewarding choice.
