Largest volunteer conservation-science network

The largest volunteer conservation-science network is the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC), which had 10,072 members as of 1 May 2024. The organization is headquartered in Switzerland and is currently chaired by Jon Paul Rodríguez.

Established in 1949 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the primary purpose of the SSC is to amass the expertise of local scientists all around the world to collate data and trends regarding the status of particular species. This helps to inform the most effective conservation action and government policy, as well as the IUCN's highly regarded Red List of Threatened Species. To date, the IUCN and its partners have assessed more than 157,000 species.

The SSC membership resets every four years at the IUCN World Conservation Congress with the current period due to end in 2025. The previous cohort, amassed from 2017 to 2021, reached a peak of 10,602 volunteers by 31 July 2021.

The SSC's volunteer scientists hail from almost every country on the planet (186 to be precise). Of these, the greatest number are based in West Europe, representing more than one-quarter of the total cohort. In second place is South and East Asia, with 21.5%, and in third is North America and the Caribbean on 19.3%.

Photo credit: Daniel Natusch