Four panelists sitting on stage in front of a digital backdrop for a panel titled "Ambition and Investment." On the far left, a woman with long wavy hair and glasses speaks into a microphone while gesturing. The three other women sit beside her listening attentively. Audience members are visible in the foreground with their backs to the camera.

At Climate Week, ASU expands conservation learning

ASU is a Nature Hub partner this year, joining the One Ocean, One Climate plenary at Climate Week NYC as it expands learning for working professionals and launches new degree pathways for the next generation of conservation practitioners.

September 23, 2026

By the numbers:

Up to 32 million new jobs could be created through investment in nature-based solutions by 2030
60 million people already work in activities related to nature-based solutions
Four new ASU conservation degree pathways begin in spring 2027

Building skills for a changing conservation workforce

At the Nature Hub Wednesday, the conversation turned to the ocean and the people whose work increasingly crosses the boundaries between science, finance, policy and communities. As a Nature Hub partner this year, Arizona State University joined the One Ocean, One Climate plenary with a focus on how people are prepared to do that work, from educating the next generation to helping people already in the workforce build the skills and knowledge they need as their roles increasingly intersect with conservation.

ASU's Rob Walton School of Conservation Futures co-convened the panel "Progress in action: Scaling ocean resilience — closing the gap between ambition and investment" with Oceans 5, Conservation International, the Ocean & Climate Platform, the Ocean Resilience and Climate Alliance, and The Nature Conservancy. Monica Dean, director of the Ocean and Climate Diplomacy Initiative at Oceans 5, moderated a panel that included Marinez Scherer, special envoy for the ocean for COP30; Ashleigh McGovern, senior vice president of the Center for Oceans at Conservation International; Catherine Burns, managing director of NatureVest, The Nature Conservancy's impact investing team; and Jen McGowan, senior global futures scientist at ASU.

The plenary is part of ASU’s weeklong presence at Climate Week NYC, where conservation futures faculty, staff, students and partners are sharing how ASU is connecting education more closely to the work happening in the field.

After panelists discussed how to finance ocean solutions, Dean turned to what comes next. "Something that we often don't talk about is the workforce within ocean-based solutions and how we make sure that we have the people and the capacity trained to help do the work that we need to get done," she said.

McGowan, who has worked in marine spatial planning and ocean conservation for about 15 years, said the questions practitioners face today look very different than they did 15 or 20 years ago. "That demands a very different profile of conservation practitioner with different expertise," she said. "We need scientists that can speak finance. We need management consultants that truly understand how ocean dynamics work."

The blue economy offers one example of how conservation jobs are changing. People working in coastal and marine conservation may need to navigate blue carbon finance, fisheries policy and community engagement alongside science. Conservation Futures Academy is expanding blue economy training in response to needs identified by practitioners. The academy develops much of its professional learning by working with people and organizations in the field to understand the skills they need.

McGowan described her own move at The Nature Conservancy from studying the impact of marine protected areas across the Indo-Pacific to working on sovereign debt restructuring, "talking about conservation trust funds and basis points and debt-to-GDP ratios." She said she was able to make that shift because she had spent her undergraduate and graduate years seeking out partners so her research would apply in the field. "It shouldn't be a privilege," she said. "It should be the status quo for the next generation of conservation."

The same pattern is playing out across conservation. Scientists may find themselves working with finance teams, community leaders with policy negotiators and program directors making decisions that draw on expertise well beyond a single discipline.

Investing in nature-based solutions could create up to 32 million new jobs by 2030, in addition to the 60 million people already working in related activities, according to the Decent Work in Nature-based Solutions 2024 report from the International Labour Organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the United Nations Environment Programme. The report identifies skills development as one of the conditions needed to support that growth.

For people already working in the field, leaving their jobs for extended periods of study may not be practical. Conservation Futures Academy offers short courses, certificates and cohort programs designed to fit alongside their work.

ASU is sharing that work throughout Climate Week, including at the Nature Hub and The Nest Climate Campus.

Explore where to find ASU Conservation Futures at Climate Week NYC.

Conservation Futures Academy's first year

McGowan pointed to Conservation Futures Academy, which ASU launched at last year's Climate Week, as one way the university is preparing people for the changing skill demands she described. What she emphasized is where the academy's courses start: with the skills conservation organizations say they need. "We are responding to the demand of the skillsets that are needed," she said.

That demand shapes the courses from the outset. In its first year, the academy co-built 13 courses with Conservation International, structuring programs and case studies around problems practitioners are working to solve. Its executive programs follow the same approach, built around challenges experienced conservation leaders have identified, from governance and funding to negotiation and decision-making.

The result is a catalog organized around the range of skills the work requires rather than a single discipline, with courses in conservation technology, finance, project management, Indigenous conservation collaborations and leadership. More than 30 courses have been developed and recorded more than 1,500 enrollments, reaching learners from high school students interested in ocean conservation to executives. "I think that will be transformative," McGowan said.

New conservation degrees open in spring 2027

Wednesday’s Nature Hub program also looked toward the people who will enter the conservation workforce next.

On Tuesday, ASU announced that the Rob Walton School of Conservation Futures is opening four degree pathways beginning in spring 2027. A Bachelor of Science in Conservation and three master’s pathways in conservation, environmental management, and innovation and leadership will bring conservation science together with Indigenous Knowledge systems, policy, technology, finance, leadership and community engagement. Online programs are anticipated for fall 2027.

Professors and practitioners teach alongside academic researchers. Peter Seligmann, who founded Conservation International in 1987 and later founded Nia Tero, is in the school as is Alex Dehgan, co-founder of Conservation X Labs and former chief scientist at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Melissa K. Nelson leads the school's Initiative for Indigenous Science and Conservation. Duan Biggs works on human-wildlife coexistence and community-based conservation, and Chris Barton works on cross-cultural knowledge systems and community-partnered marine conservation.

McGowan described interest from the next generation as high, with students eager to move into nature-positive and conservation careers. The timing is personal for her, too: "I am really excited to be back at ASU during the time that this is being shaped and built."

Learning alongside conservation partners

The degree programs are designed to take students beyond the classroom and into the places where conservation decisions are being made.

A video shared during Climate Week follows ASU students into southern Kenya's Tsavo landscape, where they worked alongside Conservation International and the Taita Taveta Wildlife Conservancies Association. There, wildlife corridors cross community lands where people raise livestock, farm and support their families. Watch the video series from their internship at Tsavo.

Students spent time with people working across that landscape, seeing how conservation science intersects with livelihoods, community priorities and decisions about land and wildlife.

Harrison Ford, vice chair of Conservation International’s board of directors, also recorded a message encouraging young people to consider careers in conservation.

Asked what gives her hope for the year ahead, McGowan pointed to young people, who she expects will hold today's leaders accountable and change how the work gets done.

Caption: Karla Moeller, senior program manager at Ask A Initiatives, talks with a visitor at the Rob Walton School of Conservation Futures booth at The Nest Climate Campus during Climate Week NYC 2026.

That next generation is the audience for Ask A Biologist, ASU's free science learning site, which visitors explored at ASU's booth at The Nest Climate Campus. Launched in 1997 in ASU's School of Life Sciences, it offers stories, games, activities and answers from scientists to learners of all ages around the world.

Its games make planetary health tangible for young learners. In the Arctic Futures Game, players build food webs that depend on sea ice, connecting microscopic algae to polar bears and the human communities that rely on them. The Coral Futures Game takes players into reef ecosystems. Stephanie Pfirman, deputy director of ASU's School of Ocean Futures, helped lead development of both games, which show players how individual and collective choices can help protect fragile environments.

"Games are the biggest thing on Ask A Biologist," Moeller told ASU News in April. "We find that actually engaging players and building in some lessons with a few of the main points that you want to get across into the game works really well."

From games that introduce young learners to fragile ecosystems, to degrees for people entering the field, to courses for practitioners whose roles are changing, ASU is building conservation learning for every stage, and a generation ready to carry it forward.