The following article is part of Rare’s Rethinking Conservation series, which builds on the need to view people as central to solving the biodiversity and climate crises. Through original content and discussion with forward-thinking experts, the series explores innovative strategies and collaborative solutions that empower communities, advance conservation, and redefine our relationship with nature.
Conservation efforts often fail. Yet in our sector, it’s still the norm to avoid talking about those failures. Success brings grant dollars, policy wins, and visibility. Failure? That usually gets swept under the rug.
I’m guilty too — scroll through my LinkedIn feed and you’ll mostly see wins, not missteps. In 2019, Catalano et al. reviewed the published literature on conservation failure and That same year, the Failure Factor Initiative by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundations found that social pressure, funder restrictions, decentralization, and staff capacity all disincentivized openness to failure. This exhaustive study proposed ‘after action’ or ‘pause and reflect’ strategies to learn from failure after it happens. But have we really changed the culture since then? Not at all.
Here’s the truth: maybe we’ve been going about this the wrong way. What if failure isn’t considered an error or a problem, but the first and necessary step to every conservation project, program, and strategy? Even the best-designed strategic plans, GANTT charts, and KPIs will inevitably collide with unpredictable dynamics — political shifts, climate impacts, and community realities. Suppose human dimensions ultimately determine whether an intervention fails or succeeds. In that case, the real question becomes: how do we know, fast enough, when we’re failing so we can adapt and eventually succeed?
Several of my colleagues at Rare have pointed out another contributing factor to embracing failure—the “black box problem” in conservation: we can’t know if, or why, an intervention is failing if we aren’t measuring the behavior changes at its heart. And if we can’t see inside the box, we can’t learn. Beyond a mindset shift, to address this, Rare has been developing two practical tools that can help:
1. Psychosocial Theories of Change
I first saw this in action in Colombia, where fishers and farmers worked with Rare to map not just the ecological and economic drivers of change, but also the social norms, motivations, and barriers that shape daily choices. When community members identified pride, trust, and perceptions of fairness as critical levers, it became clear why traditional plans often fell short: they ignored the invisible human dynamics that ultimately make or break conservation efforts. By putting these psychosocial dimensions at the center, we could anticipate and test failure points and design smarter strategies for future iteration. Failure is built into the solution from the start.
2. Pulse Monitoring
I was recently introduced to Apurva.ai, which uses artificial intelligence to listen to and measure community voice in real time. Their tools are breaking down historically significant barriers to understanding social sentiment in real time for actionable insights. Imagine listening at scale to how people are experiencing a conservation program or key event, what challenges they’re facing, and what’s resonating — and then being able to adapt in the moment. The potential of AI to break open “the black box” of conservation is immense.
While we are piloting Apurva’s tools across a few programs, Rare has begun piloting our own pulse monitoring tool to gather feedback directly from communities. Instead of waiting months or years for evaluation data, pulse monitoring surfaces early signals — whether people trust new rules, understand program goals, or feel included in decision-making. In the Philippines, this tool revealed that community members felt unsafe talking about fisheries enforcement. Qualitative research revealed something deeper: confusion around fishing boundaries, permit requirements, and frustrations with inconsistent enforcement. Because these insights surfaced quickly, practitioners were able to clarify roles, adjust communication, and rebuild trust. In other words, failure was caught early and transformed into adaptation.
Rare colleagues recently wrote more about this “black box problem” and how tools like psychosocial theories of change and pulse monitoring are helping conservationists make the invisible visible. I encourage you to read their piece here: Behavior Change Has a Black Box Problem.
Failure in conservation is not only inevitable but necessary. The challenge is what we do with it. When we start treating failure as essential— and build the tools to understand it — we stand a much better chance of learning our way to success. Programs that are not failing are not pushing themselves hard enough. Thinking and executing bold visions will require failure along the way.
A challenge for us all is to celebrate failure and require it as a necessary component of progress. How are you and your organization investing in failure? How can we change the narrative so that we are better as a sector? What tools are you using to shed light on the conservation black box and overcome failure?
Follow Caleb McClennen on LinkedIn for more insights into Rethinking Conservation.