Profile: Conservation International

History: In a Washington, D.C. hotel room on a cold February night in 1987, a small group of pioneers single-handedly redefined conservation. Instead of keeping places intact as relics of the past, [it] envisioned conservation as a working model of the future — a future in which people lived in harmony with nature. Conservation International has made this future a reality with the support of an ever-expanding list of key players. For more than 20 years [it has] empowered communities in jungles and deserts to make conservation part of their livelihoods. [CI has] worked with companies large and small to make conservation part of [its] business model. Governments from Costa Rica to China have worked with [CI] to make conservation a core component of their national policies. Throughout this process, every strategy, every action has been guided by ground-breaking science.