The Klaus Toepfer Fellowship Programme for Future Leaders in Nature Conservation from the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia aims at developing the personal capacity of early-career conservation professionals with leadership potential, to contribute to overcoming global biodiversity loss and to strengthen the regional capacities to implement multilateral environmental agreements. Participants are trained on international best conservation practice and policy, management skills and personal network development, in order to enable them to work effectively in leading positions in the biodiversity conservation sector of their home countries, and to be actively involved in international conservation processes and networks.

Module 1 of the programme, "Informing conservation", deals with types and distribution of biodiversity, trends, causes and root causes of biodiversity loss, conservation rationales, evaluating and monitoring biodiversity; information management and communication for biodiversity conservation, strategic conservation planning and adaptive management.