I am relatively new to the EA Forum (<1 year), and find myself in majority-alignment with EA values and priority areas. My personal values are slightly at odds with a hardline Longtermist's perhaps (I feel I align with a lot of this poster's outlook on personal impact), and one of the areas that I see little focus on within EA is wilderness conservation. (This post from 2021 is one of only a few posts I've found that directly address conservation efforts.)
Recently, I've been studying the lives of Doug and Kris Tompkins in a casual manner, and become continually inspired by their aggressive approach to conservation and fighting climate change. If you read about their work in the 1990s and 2000s, there are seeds and thoughts that align with the latter EA movement (although they did not, as far as I can tell, fund research or analysis of research; they went with a gut feeling). As an outdoorsman hobbyist with substantial experience wandering the backcountry of North America, I'd like to allocate some of my monthly and year giving to effective conservation.
Asides from the documented mental health benefits of spending time in nature, it seems that preventing entities with destructive practices or business models from buying or accessing resource-rich wilderness areas could contribute to overall efforts at stemming the negative effects of climate change. In fact, I'm somewhat dismayed that there isn't any easily accessible research in this area on efficacy - seems like an interesting area for someone to address.
What organizations are conserving wilderness areas most effectively?
