History
Conservation International was founded in January 1987 in Washington, D.C., by Peter Seligmann and Spencer Beebe, previously employees of the international division of The Nature Conservancy. The new organization focused on the conservation of tropical biodiversity and, at first, focused on the countries where Seligmann and Beebe had worked: Bolivia, Costa Rica and Mexico.
In CI's first year of existence, the organization purchased a portion of Bolivia's foreign debt. The money was then redirected to support conservation in the Beni Biosphere Reserve. Since this first-ever debt-for-nature swap, which helped cement CI's role in the conservation community, more than $1 billion of similar deals have been made around the world.
Two years later, in 1989, CI formally committed to the protection of biodiversity hotspots, ultimately identifying 34 such hotspots around the world and contributing to their protection. The model of protecting hotspots became a key way for organizations to do conservation work.
Read more about this topic: Conservation International
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