In 1960, surveys estimated that only 200 golden lion tamarins remained in the wild. These primates are native to the Atlantic rainforest in Brazil, where their habitat is decimated by logging, agriculture, and urbanization. Stakeholder groups needed to coordinate their work in order for them to be efficient and effective.

The Brazilian government invited the Conservation Planning Specialist Group (CPSG) to guide the groups in determining exactly what it would take to not only save golden lion tamarins from extinction but allow them to thrive again in their rainforest home. At the workshop in 1990, CPSG created population simulation models to generate an overall picture of what conditions the species needed to survive in the wild. This helped the group articulate a specific vision that all their individual efforts would strive to achieve. Together they determined that to survive, the wild population needed to grow to at least 2,000 and have access to 25,000 hectares of connected and protected forest by 2025.