Abstract Conservation is an interdisciplinary and applied field with a range of careers requiring different skills and abilities. Recent studies have identified ‘miss-matches’ between training available to early-career conservationists with the expectations and demands of the sector (Andrade et al., 2014; Lucas et al., 2017). Given the complexity of contemporary conservation challenges, and trends towards new ways of doing conservation that are more integrative, interactive and inclusive, the necessary ‘capacity’ now extends beyond knowledge of conservation science into a range of other skills and competencies. A diversity of capacity development initiatives are required to ensure that early-career conservationists around the world can seek out the necessary skills and experiences for their desired conservation career. However, at present we lack a global picture of conservation capacity provision and global priorities for capacity development in the conservation sector are unclear. Based on a review of relevant literature we focus on five focal areas of importance to contemporary conservation: policy, practice, collaboration, leadership and interdisciplinarity. Our study compiles and analyses an extensive database of 650 postgraduate-level conservation capacity development initiatives from 54 countries. We find the five focal areas to be highly correlated and postulate that this reflects requirements for foundational skills in communication, interpersonal interaction and boundary crossing. This study reveals substantial regional gaps in the provision of leadership capacity in Oceania, South and Central America, the Caribbean and all Asian regions. It also highlights a general need to strengthen policy-related capacity within conservation initiatives with other foci. These findings could help capacity development institutions, organisations and funders to improve the design and delivery of a comprehensive suite of initiatives to suit the changing needs of contemporary conservation.

中文翻译：

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保护能力发展的全球模式

摘要 保护是一个跨学科和应用领域，涉及一系列需要不同技能和能力的职业。最近的研究已经确定了早期职业保护主义者可用的培训与该部门的期望和需求之间的“不匹配”（Andrade 等人，2014 年；Lucas 等人，2017 年）。鉴于当代保护挑战的复杂性，以及更加综合、互动和包容的保护新方法的趋势，必要的“能力”现在已经超越了保护科学知识，扩展到一系列其他技能和能力。需要采取多种能力发展举措，以确保世界各地的早期职业保护主义者能够为他们理想的保护事业寻找必要的技能和经验。然而，目前，我们缺乏保护能力提供的全球图景，保护部门能力发展的全球优先事项尚不清楚。基于对相关文献的回顾，我们关注对当代保护具有重要意义的五个重点领域：政策、实践、合作、领导力和跨学科。我们的研究汇编和分析了来自 54 个国家的 650 个研究生级别的保护能力发展计划的广泛数据库。我们发现五个重点领域高度相关，并假设这反映了对沟通、人际互动和跨越边界的基本技能的要求。这项研究揭示了大洋洲、南美洲和中美洲、加勒比地区和所有亚洲地区在提供领导能力方面存在巨大的区域差距。它还强调了在保护倡议中与其他重点加强政策相关能力的普遍需要。这些发现可以帮助能力发展机构、组织和资助者改进一整套举措的设计和实施，以适应当代保护不断变化的需求。