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The CONS program is pleased to announce that as of fall 2007 we are participating in the Peace Corps Masters International program. CONS student Mauricio Bedoya - Gaitán is one of the contributors to the Libro Rojo de los Mamíferos de Colombia (the Red Book of the Mammals of Colombia) that was published last fall. CONS graduate Tom Smerling has been appointed as a Knauss Marine Policy Fellow for 2007. He is the third CONS student to receive this prestigious award, which will permit him to work for a year in the National Ocean Service's Office of Special Projects. He is providing support to the Gulf of Mexico Alliance as well as other projects.
January 2007: PROBLEM SOLVED! The Council oversees the Waterbird Conservation for the Americas initiative, a partnership of individuals and institutions having an interest in and responsibility for conservation of waterbirds and their habitats throughout the Americas . The Council identified seabirds as a group of species in need of conservation action and sought outside input as to how it could best become involved in their conservation. Through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) Waterbird Coordinator (and former CONS student), Jennifer Wheeler, the UMD Problem Solving team was asked to inform the Council on how it might strategically engage in seabird conservation. After presenting its results to representatives of the FWS, the Canadian Wildlife Service, and other international conservation organizations, the UMD team was invited to present its findings to the Council itself at its annual meeting in Ecuador . With financial support from FWS, UMD, and NOAA, the students were able to present their findings in person. They received numerous accolades on the floor and in the halls of the meeting. As a result of the Problem Solving team's efforts, seabird conservation has been elevated to one of the top priorities of the Waterbird Council for 2007. To symbolize its support and enthusiasm for engagement in seabird conservation and to facilitate implementation of the UMD report's recommendations, the Council has declared 2007 as the "Year of the Seabird". In addition, many Council members noted that the findings and recommendations within the students' report will likely live on in the Council's work for many years to come. After the meeting ended, what did the students do to celebrate? Of course, they went birding! The CONS student's findings will also be presented at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Seabird Group in Asilomar, California, in February. Congratulations to Nicole, Wendel, and Nicole for their outstanding work! They have raised the profile of the CONS program within this important field of international conservation and have made an immediate positive impact on seabirds throughout the Americas .
December 2006: CONS graduate Max Christian has co-organized a symposium for the 2007 SCB annual meeting in South Africa: Economic growth, biodiversity conservation, and the Society for Conservation Biology. We're expecting that several CONS students will attend that meeting to make presentations from the Problem-Solving course projects. December 2006: CONS graduate Keri Parker was accepted to the Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders program. EWCL is jointly funded by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Defenders of Wildlife, White Oak Conservation Center/Howard Gilman Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Network. August 2006: CONS graduates Chuan-Kai (Kevin) Ho, Annette Meredith, and Shonda Foster (representing the Society for Conservation Biology) were at the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting in Memphis. David enjoyed the talks that Net and Kevin gave there. May 2006: CONS graduate Courtney Schultz, now a Ph.D. student in the College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana, won the prize for best student poster about science and policy at the AIBS annual meeting. " My work definitely has built upon my CONS background, which was a big part of why I was able to present research so early in my PhD process (I just finished my first semester)." Congratulations Courtney! February 2006: CONS graduate Jamarber (Abi) Malltezi has been named Project Coordinator for Integrated Coastal Management and Clean-Up Project, a $30 million World Bank project primarily focusing on management of Ionian Sea coastline in Albania. December 2005: Jim and David are given the Distinguished International Service Award by University of Maryland President Dan Mote, in recognition of their work bringing international students to the CONS program, and for Jim's work in Brazil.
October 2005: Rick Kearney (2002 graduate) shared the podium with Dr. Ron DeHaven, Director of the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, in a national press conference detailing the federal government's plan to deal with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in wild birds and domestic poultry. As co-chair of an interagency task force, Rick helps to lead a program that is designed to detect and respond to the possible introduction of this deadly virus to North America by migratory birds. July 2005: CONS was well-represented at the Society for Conservation Biology annual meeting held in Brasilia, Brasil. Jim Dietz moderated a symposium on Population Dynamics and presented on "Demograhpic and genetic effects of intense predation in an isolated population of golden lion tamarins." Current CONS students, Dana Coelho, Fabiano Godoy and Benjamin Skolnik, gave a presentation "Spatial designation of conservation priorities for golden lion tamarins (Leontopithecus rosalia) in the Anathea Brooks '95, Karen Douthwaite '03, Marcia Macedo '01 and Woody Turner '01. 2005 is the 15th year since the CONS program was approved to enroll students! May 2005: The CONS program welcomes new students from Haiti, Peru, Costa Rica, and Honduras; we have had students from 30 countries now! May 2005: The CONS program receives the Instructional Unit award for 2005 from the President's Commission on Ethnic Minority Issues. Here David Inouye (minus his beard!) receives a plaque from campus president Dr. Dan Mote.
June 2003: Jim Dietz made a presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology, in a session about education of conservation biologists. In addition, eight current or former CONS students attended the meeting:: Linda Weir '01 May 2003: The new dual-degree program with the School of Public Affairs is now available. You can receive both the M.S. in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology and a Masters of Public Policy, with an emphasis in Environmental Policy, in three years. May 2003: Two more papers about the CONS program are now in press in Conservation Biology! See below. The first came from a CONS 608 seminar in 2002, and the second from David's review of CONS applicants and students. Dietz, J. M., R. Aviram, S. Bickford, K. Douthwaite, A. Goodstine, J.-L. Izursa, S. Kavanaugh, K. MacCarthy, M. O'Herron, and K. Parker. 2003. Defining leadership in conservation: A view from the top. Conservation Biology 18(1):274-278. Inouye, D. W., and C. Brewer. 2003. Who are we training in conservation biology graduate programs? A Case Study of the Program in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology at the University of Maryland. Consevation Biology 17 :1204-1208. March 2003: Jeff Langholz (1994 graduate) coauthored this new book: Langholz, Jeffrey, and K. Turner. 2003. You can prevent global warming (and save money!). Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing. November 26, 2002: David Inouye (CONS Director) has been awarded a 5-year $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for his long-term research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. The LTREB program that made the award requires a minimum of six years of data before you can apply for a grant, but David has projects that were started in 1973 so that was no obstacle. October 20, 2002: Dr. Herman Daly was awarded the "Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic" in recognition of his work in developing the idea of a steady-state economy. E. O. Wilson was also honored. Most CONS students take courses with Dr. Daly in the School of Public Affairs. Jenny Steinberg (1998 graduate) is shown weightless aboard the "Vomit Comet" in the March 2002 issue of National Geographic. She is a staff writer for National Geographic. Aleria Jensen (2001 graduate) was awarded a Knauss SeaGrant Fellowship and in February will start a year at NOAA's Office of Protected Resources on the marine mammal conservation and recovery team. Aleria is the second CONS student to win this fellowship recently. May 2001: David Inouye was interviewed on the Pulse of the Planet radio program. (Transcript 1, Transcript 2, Transcript 3) April 2001: Jim Dietz was interviewed on the Living on Earth radio program. (Transcript) Tracy Hart (1999 graduate) researched and co-authored this 139-page report as her scholarly paper: Atkinson, J. and Tracy Hart. 2001. Conservation coast to coast. Comparing state action on marine protected areas in California, Washington and the US Gulf of Maine. Conservation Law Foundation. www.clf.org. For her contribution to this project and her work on proposed management guidelines for the Maryland Coastal Bays National Estuary, she received a Walter B. Jones and NOAA Award for Excellence in Coastal and Marine Graduate Study. She is now monitoring humpback whale population dynamics in Glacier Bay National Park, and has studied sea turtles, sea lions, and humpback whale populations in Mexico. Shelly Grow and Ed Schwartzman just published a paper resulting from
their research on the genus Guiacum: Grow, S. and E. Schwartzman. 2001.
The status of Guaiacum species in trade. Medicinal Plant Conservation
7: 19-20. Their interest in this genus began during a problem-solving
class project and they were subsequently awarded $10,000 from the Secretariat
of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora to travel to Central America for their research. |
