Initial Focus:  Although the goals of our Centre are to promote conservation, environmental protection, and sustainable land-use practices worldwide, the initial focus of our research, conservation, and educational and protection activities will be on China. China is facing an unprecedented set of challenges in balancing the effects of economic development and global climate change with environmental protection and maintaining biodiversity. China is the world’s most populous nation, and has transitioned from a largely agrarian economy to a highly industrial economy over the past 40 years. It has dramatically transformed its natural environment in ways that have negatively impacted environmental and species survival. With the creation of the China Primatological Society in 2017, the rapid expansion of primate biology as a distinct scientific discipline in China, and the fact that 80% of China’s nonhuman primates are threatened with extinction, the country is poised to initiate a national-scale systematic conservation plan to determine the optimized spatial priorities for biodiversity conservation and to collaborate with primate scientists and conservation organizations worldwide to develop new technologies and analytical tools for wildlife study and conservation. Research projects that monitor, evaluate and promote effective conservation and educational programs, direct conservation action, and are tightly coordinated with local conservation programs are prioritized by the ICBPC (Fig. 1).
 
Expanded Focus
Over the next 5 years, our Centre plans to compete for research funds and develop public-private partnerships with conservation organizations, NGOs, international and national businesses, donors, and government agencies in order to expand our conservation and educational missions to other primate-habitat countries and environmentally degraded hotspots.