It has evolved into a partnership of like-minded, forward-thinking and environmentally aware organizations.

The partnership recognizes that the private sector has a key role to play in conservation. Proteus provides an effective platform from which the private sector can support and engage with international organizations, national governments and non-governmental organizations to help protect the world's biodiversity.

The partnership accepts that economic growth without due regard for the world's biodiversity is unacceptable. It recognizes the need to monitor human induced pressures and the implementation of conservation measures. In doing so the partnership supports the international conservation community and the internationally agreed target to significantly reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010, which was facilitated by the United Nations.

Proteus main focus is now to create a decentralized, user-friendly, up-to-date system for storing, managing and reporting on trends in coverage for all the world's protected areas - conforming to best practice techniques and providing a platform that allows for the easy integration of other conservation datasets and user opinion.

StatoilHydo has been a partner since the beginning of the initiative.