I know this post is a bit of an older post but I question why it needs to be a policy advocacy organization and not a "let's just get this done" organization with some approval by governments with studies done.

I suppose I fear that many people like the allure of policy advocacy because the leverage seems great but in practice there are just a ton of roadblocks at every corner that are lurking when you have to convince corrupt legislators, stagnant and bureaucratic government departments, politicians who mainly care about their re-election/power and looking good short term to voters and more dumb roadblocks.

Because of the down votes, I'll explain why.

I think "holistic" is often a way of simply "doing whatever I feel like in the first place without looking at data" or doing it on "vibes". I think it is the opposite of rigor and evidence.

"Holistic" has to be the word that I feel is most antithetical to EA

Prior to EA, I worked with a political party/candidate in Canada (who was an MP and cabinet minister) and I also worked at the National Research Council of Canada.

I wouldn't just say could. I'm fairly certain this will be quite bad for animal welfare

Interesting, I think precisely the opposite. From my experience in government, this is where highly capable people lose ambition and go on to live lives of mediocrity, conformity and no impact. You learn to be a bureaucratic paper pusher who does as they are told and work 9-4 with lots of breaks and holidays and never has any metrics they need to hit.

I'm sure this comment will get downvoted but I think it at least needs to be out there.

I'll just throw my name in as well against Greg in case there are any takers. Would be willing to make bets up to 6 figures

Congratulations! This is awesome

Usually, in EA circles, I find there is too much philosophizing and not enough action. But in this case, I feel like biodiversity/ecoresilience has failed to come up with enough philosophical justification for why biodiversity/ecoresilience matters.

We don’t aim to convince more EA’s to care about biodiversity. If you ALREADY support biodiversity conservation, we want to provide answers on how to do it better.

I feel like this is step 1 though. I would feel similar if someone were to recommend DanceVariety Initative, a 2 year old research group building an effective altruism-based recommendation framework for variety in dance styles and the first step wasn't "convince a critical mass of EAs that this is a top priority in the first place".

Effective altruism-based recommendation framework for biodiversity and ecosystems

The EA framework is essentially applying rigor, quantification, measurement, etc. to the world's most pressing problems but there is no reason you can't apply rigor, quantification and measurement to anything (maximizing shareholder value, collecting stamps, getting good at chess, making your NBA team better). What makes it EA is when it is applied to the most pressing problems and I don't think biodiversity/ecoresilience has made a compelling case or put enough effort into it.

https://x.com/janleike/status/1791498174659715494

Jan Leike left this thread on why he resigned.