The idea of conservation biology as a scientific discipline with a specific application to society-at-large was brought to life in 1978 by organizers Michael Soule and Bruce Wilcox. They formalized their interest in a new conservation discipline at the first International Conference of Conservation Biology in San Diego. Between 1978 and 1985, the ideals of conservation biology survived through some growing pains, most importantly expanding from the idea of several single disciplines looking at a problem to a unified examination of a problem including the insights of many disciplines.

The core of that interdisciplinary approach formed a foundation from which, in 1985, the Society for Conservation Biology was born. The Society is, in its own words, "...an international professional organization dedicated to promoting the scientific study of the phenomena that affect the maintenance, loss, and restoration of biological diversity. The Society's membership is comprised of a...